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A 
HOOSIER AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



BY 

WILLIAM DUDLEY FOULKE, LL.D. 

AUTHOR OF "MAYA," "LIFE OF O. P. MORTON," "PROTEAN PAPERS," 

"DOROTHY DAY," "MASTERPIECES OF THE MASTERS OF FICTION," 

"some love songs of PETRARCH," "LYRICS OF WAR AND 

PEACE," " FIGHTING THE SPOILSMEN," "TODAY 

AND YESTERDAY," ETC. 



NEW YORK 
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 

, American Branch: 35 West 32d Street 
LONDON, TORONTO, MELBOURNE & BOMBAY 



.r-r 57 Ft 



Copyright, 1922, 
BY Oxford University Press 

AMERICAN BRANCH 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



MAY 19 1922 
0)CI.A674170 



The author offers his grateful acknowledgment to his 
friends Professor C. K, Chase of Hamilton College, New 
York, and to Mrs. Chase for their careful revision and 
correction of the manuscript of this book and for their 
many valuable suggestions. 

The lines at the beginning of each chapter are taken 
from two volumes of verse by the author, ''Lyrics of 
War and Peace" (Oxford University Press and Bobbs 
Merrill Co., 1916), and "Today and Yesterday" (Ox- 
ford University Press, 1920). 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Chapter I. Early Life i 

Introductory 

Boyhood 

Quaker Influences 

Our Summer Home 

Preparing for College 

College Life 

Law School 

The Liberal Club 

Marriage 

Bloomfield 

Law Practice in New York 

Removal to Indiana 

Chapter II. Life in Indiana 30 

The Richmond Home 
The Charm of Indiana 
The Art Association 
Local Colour 
A Fox Hunt 
The Family 
Dramatic Interests 
At the Indiana Bar 
A Scrimmage 
Railroad Practice 
Personal Associations 
Retirement from Practice 
Reflections 

Chapter III. Indiana Associations, Julian, Riley, etc. . . 55 
The Tuesday Club 
George W. Julian 
Mugwumps 
Indianapolis Clubs 
Western Association of Writers 
James Whitcomb Riley 
Indiana Society of Chicago 
Jekyl Island Club 
Earlham College 
Swarthmore College 

Chapter IV. The State Senate ...,...„ 70 
The Campaign 
The Session of 1883 
The Session of 1885 
Investigation of the State Treasury- 
Toleration toward the Negro 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Chapter V. Public Questions 84 

Woman's Suffrage 

Civil Service Reform 

Proportional Representation 

The Russian Question 

The National Municipal League 

Chapter VI. Political Activities— Imperialism .... 100 
Early Political Affiliations 
The Hayes and Garfield Campaigns 
The Three Cleveland Campaigns 
Anti-Imperialism 
The Campaign of igoo 

Chapter VII. Life in Washington 109 

Theodore Roosevelt 

Rides and Walks with the President 

Other Personal Incidents 

Roosevelt Characteristics 

Other Washington Associations 

The Muskogee Investigation 

Chapter VIII. Roosevelt and Taft Campaigns . . . .143 
The Roosevelt Campaign, 1904 
The Taft Campaign, 1908 , 

Chapter IX. The Progressive Movement 151 

The Taft Administration 

The Payne-Aldrich Tariff Bill 

Ballinger — Roosevelt's Return 

The Republican Nomination in 1912 

The Progressive Convention and Campaign 

The First Wilson Administration 

The Campaign of 1916 

Chapter X. The Trusts 170 

The Chicago Conferences 
Trusts in the Campaign of 1908 
Practical Remedies 

Chapter XI. The League to Enforce Peace i79 

Preliminary Organisations 
The League to Enforce Peace 
The League of Nations 

Chapter XII. The World War 190 

Outbreak of the Struggle 

Preparedness 

The Conscription Board 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Chapter XIII. Journalism and Literature . . .. ., . 204 
Journalism 
Literary Interests 
"Life of Governor Morton" 
"Maya" 

"Protean Papers" 
"History of the Langobards" 
"Dorothy Day" 

"Masterpieces of the Masters of Fiction" 
"Fighting the Spoilsmen" 
Poetry 

Chapter XIV. Personalia 213 

Whims and Fancies 

Some Business Experiences 

The Society of Friends 

Retrospect 

Philosophy of Life 

Appendix I. Indiana's Output. Speech before the Indiana 
Society of Chicago, January 28, 1908 227 

Appendix II. Address at the Opening Session of the Na- 
tional American Woman Suffrage Association in Wash- 
ington, D. C, February 18, 1890 233 



A Hoosier Autobiography 



CHAPTER I 

EARLY LIFE 



I GLEAN with care the stalks that memory leaves 
Upon the time-mown fields of earlier years ; 

I gather all and bind them into sheaves, 

Then winnow them, that from the fruitful ears 

Some seed may fall that in its turn will bring 

Fresh hope of harvest for a coming spring. 

— Autobiography. 

INTRODUCTORY 

Many years ago I dreamed that my friend, Captain Y., believed 
he was going to die upon a certain day, and accordingly fixed the 
time and made all the arrangements for his funeral, which was 
to be held in the Quaker meeting house at Richmond, Indiana. 
When the day arrived, his friends assembled; the house was full, 
and among others came my father, a minister of the Society of 
Friends, to bear his testimony to the virtues of the deceased. But 
the Captain's presentiments had not come true, he was still liv- 
ing, and he now determined to preside in person over his own 
obsequies. He sat "at the head of the meeting" and as my 
father, accompanied by another Friend, walked up the aisle, he 
called out that Abijah Jones was welcome but that he did not 
choose to have Thomas Foulke speak at his funeral. While it 
seemed to me that a man had the right to manage his own 
funeral if he were there to see to it himself, I was annoyed at the 
affront to my father and we walked out of the meeting-house 
together. 

In writing these memoirs I cannot help thinking of that old 

z 



2 EARLY LIFE 

dream. Biography, to be complete, should be a post-mortem 
account of a man's life and therefore written by another. Is not 
the man who writes his own biography like one who would take 
charge of his own obsequies and thus try to forestall an un- 
palatable obituary? 

Yet the man himself knows better than another what he has 
done and why, and if he be honest, he should be able to give a 
more faithful account of his career. The main questions are, 
whether the story is worth the telling and how well it can be 
told. I cannot say that there is anything very important in 
the pages which follow. I have seen a good deal of the world 
from various sides and have taken part in a good many public 
movements, but so have thousands of others ; and my best hope 
to justify the narrative is found in the maxim that the life of the 
humblest man, if reasonably well told, may be of interest to the 
greatest. 

And a certain value may also lie in the point of view. It 
may be that a man, originally a New Yorker, then a Hoosier by 
adoption, who has witnessed the significant development of the 
great Middle West during half a century and who has himself 
been connected, in their early stages, with many movements then 
considered radical but since adopted by the country at large, such 
as Woman's Suffrage, Civil Service and Municipal Reform, and 
the development of closer international relations — it can well be 
that this man may, in the story of his life, have some contribu- 
tion to offer to the history of his own time. 

BOYHOOD 

Many New Yorkers have been born and reared in other parts 
of the country — in New England, in the South, in the Missis- 
sippi Valley, some of them in Indiana — why then should not a 
man who has spent the bulk of his life in Indiana call himself 
a Hoosier, though he be a native of the city of New York? 

I was born in that city on November 20, 1848, at No. 76 
Rivington Street. It was a neighbourhood which was then quiet 
and respectable, though not at all fashionable, but which has 
since become part of the tenement house district of the metropolis. 



BOYHOOD 3 

My father, Thomas Foulke, was at the time principal of a 
ward school, then the largest in the city, with an attendance of 
some two thousand pupils. He was, however, a man of some 
little property and not altogether dependent on the meagre salary 
of his calling. He belonged to a Pennsylvania family which had 
settled in Gwynedd Township, Montgomery County, about four- 
teen miles from Philadelphia, over two hundred years ago. Ed- 
ward and Eleanor Foulke, the original founders of the family in 
America, were among the colonists brought over by William Penn. 
Edward belonged to an old Welsh family, which traced its descent 
back to the time of Henry IT, and some of whose members were 
well known to English history. 

He was a farmer and became a Quaker about the time of his 
emigration. His descendants for several generations nearly all 
belonged to the Society of Friends, and my father and grandfather 
were both ministers of that Society. 

I was an only child. My mother, Hannah S. Foulke, was the 
daughter of Abraham Shoemaker, a New York merchant. He also 
was a Friend, a man of excellent business ability but very much 
of a recluse, seeing few people and visiting not at all. His wife, 
Margaret Shoemaker, was much more active and took an interest 
in many public questions, particularly in the anti-slavery move- 
ment. They both lived to be over ninety years of age. 

My parents resided with them and with a brother and sister 
of my mother. The house was for a time one of the stations on 
the "underground railroad," for we used to help fugitive negroes 
on their way to Canada and we were once involved in litigation 
on account of assistance thus given. 

At a later time my father was the principal of Friends' Semi- 
nary, an academy established by the Society in a building adjoin- 
ing the meeting-house in Rutherford Place in New York. I 
attended school there for a number of years and was graduated 
in 1864.* 

1 The incidents of my early life, my school days and the Quaker 
customs and traditions which they illustrate, are more fully contained 
in the first book of "Dorothy Day" (Cosmopolitan Press, 191 1, pp. i 
to 116), the statements of which are based on facts, though the actual 
names are not given. 



4 EARLY LIFE 

QUAKER INFLUENCES 

Born and reared as I was in a family of old-fashioned Hicksite 
Quakers, the views and traditions of their simple and earnest 
religion became part of my life, and although I have since dis- 
carded most of these, some still remain with me. 

The Society of Friends has no written creed; its paramount 
doctrine is the belief in the "inner light," the conviction that 
God reveals himself directly to all who seek His guidance, not 
only upon questions of dogma and of moral and religious duty, 
but often as a special providence guiding and protecting the lives 
of His followers. The supreme injunction of George Fox, the 
founder of Quakerism, was "Mind the Light." It was generally 
considered that the ministers of the Society in their sermons 
uttered not simply their own thoughts but a message which had 
been given to them by a higher power. 

Besides this fundamental idea, there were other things of a 
more practical nature to which the Society was devoted, and 
enquiries respecting these things were made periodically in their 
various meetings by means of certain formal "Queries," asking, 
for instance, whether Friends were careful to keep their obliga- 
tions and not extend their business beyond their ability to man- 
age it; whether they observed temperance and sobriety in their 
lives, etc. The principles of peace and non-resistance and a deep 
regard for human liberty, involving opposition to negro slavery, 
were also among the unwritten tenets of the Society. 

We used to entertain at our house many of the Friends who 
took part in the various yearly and quarterly meetings which 
were held in New York. So numerous were our guests that, 
in addition to those we could accommodate in our various bed- 
rooms, the attic of the house was devoted to them, cots and 
improvised beds being placed there, and the women's quarters 
being carefully screened off by curtains. 

The broad brims, plain bonnets, and drab suits were there in 
abundance. My father himself wore the peculiar garb of the 
Quakers with high collar and curving front lines of a coat that 
was always made of black broadcloth; his silk hat, with a brim 
a little wider than the prevailing fashion of the day, was glossy 



QUAKER INFLUENCES $ 

and well brushed, and his black stock looked always fresh and 
new. I have sometimes wondered whether there was not almost 
as much pride of appearance shown in this garb as in the cos- 
tumes of the "world's people." 

The eminent ministers of the Society, Lucretia Mott, John 
Hunt, David Barnes, Richard Cromwell, and others, were often 
with us, and my youth was spent in an atmosphere of mysticism 
and deep religious faith. There were wonderful stories of divine 
revelations given to these servants of the Lord, and we were 
impressed with the supreme importance of heeding the "inner 
light" which, it was believed, shone upon the faithful in their 
daily lives. 

Among the ministers who were with us at Yearly Meetings 
and on other occasions was my grandfather, Joseph Foulke, a 
hale and genial old man with a round, moon-like face, his drab 
waistcoat covering an ample "bay-window." He was always a 
welcome guest at the houses of Friends, who entertained him when 
he travelled from place to place, as he often did, in the work of 
the ministry. The Quaker preachers received nothing for their 
services, they even paid their own expenses, and my grandfather, 
when he deeded his farm to his eldest son, reserved a small annuity 
which enabled him to do this gratuitous service and to deliver such 
messages as he believed had been entrusted to him by his Divine 
Master. 

He had a great assortment of charming anecdotes, generally 
about Friends and their odd ways and sayings, which always drew 
around him a circle of interested listeners. 

His childlike faith stayed with him up to his final hour, and 
amid the sufferings of his last illness he was filled with the calm 
assurance that he had fought the good fight, that he had kept the 
faith, and that there was laid up for him the crown of righteous- 
ness which the Lord, the righteous judge, would give to those who 
served Him. 

But in spite of these early surroundings I became distrustful, 
even in boyhood, of the supernatural agencies of which I heard 
so much. Sometimes, led by some shining example which had 
been set before me, I would open the Bible at random with the 
hope that the "inner light" would shine for my instruction from 



6 EARLY LIFE 

some particular passage, but I commonly came upon a verse tell- 
ing me that Shaharaim begat children in the country of Moab, 
or describing the preparation of the shew bread; or if, relying 
upon the intimations of the "inner light," I took the second omni- 
bus in place of the first one, I never could find that any accident 
happened to either of them, until at last I came to believe that 
my own common sense was a safer guide for daily conduct than any 
other kind of illumination. 

Although these notions of spiritual interposition gradually grew 
faint and finally disappeared, yet the habit of following personal 
convictions of duty became deeply imbedded in my nature. Such 
convictions, however, were not always well balanced; they were 
much stronger in regard to some things than to others just as 
important. Where they were strong, I instinctively and inevita- 
bly followed them; when this was not the case I often fell short 
in my conduct. 

About the time of the close of the Civil War, we moved from 
the house in Rivington Street to one in Thirty-eighth Street 
between Fifth and Sixth avenues, then very far "up-town." 

OUR SUMMER HOME 

Our summers were usually spent at Long Branch, where my 
aunt, Ann S. Dudley, had a cottage. The rest of the family lived 
with her during the hot months for nearly a score of years. Long 
Branch was quite a primitive place in those days. There were no 
railroads, and only a single steamboat running from New York. 
It left at a different hour each day so as to sail up the shallow 
waters of the Shrewsbury inlet at high tide. It often ran aground 
and we sometimes remained fast for hours; on one occasion, all 
night long. 

The place was then a quiet, rural neighbourhood with a few 
summer hotels stretched along the low bluff by the shore. Our 
cottage was about a mile back from the sea. It stood upon the 
side of a small hill that rose like an ocean swell from out the 
plain. The hill was crowned by our summer-house, from which 
there was a remarkably fine view not only of the sea but of the 
distant Highlands of Navesink. Nearer were the hills of Rumson 



OUR SUMMER HOME 7 

Neck and Red Bank, with woods, fields and farmhouses in the 
foreground. Among these the Shrewsbury inlet wound its glis- 
tening, snake-like course, and one branch of it came almost up 
to the foot of our hill, where it disappeared among the tall green 
rushes. I had a little attic room where I studied and wrote, 
though my life was mostly out of doors, and I recall with delight 
the bathing, the sailing, the fishing, the picnic in the woods, the 
clambake by the river, the dance at night in the hotel, the 
tete-a-tete upon the beach. I loved especially the cool evenings 
of the early autumn, and always returned to the city with regret. 
There is one figure that stands out very clearly in my memory 
of those days at Long Branch. It is that of the venerable Bishop 
Simpson of the Methodist Episcopal Church, who was, I think, 
next to Henry Ward Beecher, the most eloquent pulpit orator in 
America. He lived for two or three summers in a little cottage 
just at the end of our lane on the opposite side of the highroad. 
Here I visited him occasionally and was much impressed with his 
benignant personality. For a few years President Grant had a 
summer cottage on the beach; he was expected one Sunday at 
the village church, but did not come. Possibly in anticipation 
of his presence, Bishop Simpson had prepared a sermon which 
seemed to me, as I listened to it, the most impressive I had ever 
heard. It was apparently extemporaneous, but had evidently been 
carefully planned beforehand. The text was, "Abel, being dead, 
yet speaketh." The bishop passed in brief but eloquent review 
the great events in the history of the world since Abel's day — the 
changes wrought by time, war, civilisation, and religion in all the 
races of men. "And yet," he said, "the voice which spoke in 
those primaeval days is speaking still and will continue to speak 
until the latest generation." This was the great preacher's illus- 
tration of the power of human influence. He compared it to a 
pebble dropped in the still waters of a pool, whose widening circles 
spread on every side until they kissed the shores. He reminded 
us of the principle of physics that no force, wherever exerted, is 
entirely lost, and he drew from this theme the inevitable moral 
that each man in every act of his life should so conduct himself 
that his influence would work for the glory of God and the 
welfare of mankind. 



8 EARLY LIFE 

He spoke also of the "cloud of witnesses" by whom our acts 
were seen, picturing in fancy the clouds that developed themselves 
into cherub faces, as in Raphael's paintings of the Madonna. His 
sermon was a poem, and he held us for an hour and a half captive 
to the spell of his oratory. 

PREPARING FOR COLLEGE 

During the winter and spring of 1865 I had to prepare 
for college, for it was decided to send me to Columbia in the 
fall. I knew little Latin and not a word of Greek, and a 
formidable task was before me to be completed between No- 
vember and June. I secured as tutor a thorough drill-master 
in Greek verbs and in the rules of syntax, and after I had got 
into the swing of it I was able to take a hundred and fifty lines 
of Homer at a lesson, and by June I had gone over the whole 
ground required. I was greatly flustered, however, in the exami- 
nation by the awe-inspiring presence of Prof. Charles Anthon, 
and made a flat failure in Plutarch and the Anabasis. But when 
he called for Homer, there was something in the rhythm of the 
hexameters that ended my confusion. I knew them so well that 
I couldn't get them wrong, and after I had answered all his 
questions correctly, he wrote "Passed" upon my card, with the 
remark, "You may thank old Homer for that. He saved you." 

COLLEGE LIFE 

Columbia College at that time was in temporary quarters. It 
had moved from its former home in College Place and was oc- 
cupying an old building on Forty-ninth Street that had formerly 
been used for a Blind Asylum. The campus in front was large 
enough for a "rush" between Freshmen and Sophomores, and a 
little later we had the vacant square between Forty-ninth and 
Fiftieth streets and between Fifth and Sixth avenues for our 
games of baseball and football. Much of the adjacent neigh- 
bourhood was occupied by squatters with their shanties perched 
upon the rocks, a very convenient thing for us boys when we 
wanted to buy hens or geese to throw into the lecture rooms 
during examinations. 



COLLEGE LIFE 9 

The curriculum was not like the present one with its many 
optional courses. We all had to fit into the same bed. The 
classics, history, literature, logic, mathematics and some rather 
rudimentary work in chemistry, physics, etc., constituted, with 
"The Evidences of the Christian Religion," the principal branches 
of instruction. The president was Dr. F. A, P. Barnard, a 
kindly, broad-minded old man, who was at that time laying the 
foundation for a fuller recognition of the sciences. Dr. Anthon 
was professor of Greek; he was a noble-looking man — a prince 
of old-fashioned pedagogues — with his jokes, his tyrannies, 
his prejudices and partialities, and with them a bonhommie so 
strong and winning that we were devoted to him. To me at least 
he gave an inspiration and a love for the Greek language and 
literature which have lasted through life. Say what you will about 
the uselessness of Greek in general education, I would rather lose 
all the rest of what I learned in college than my rich experience 
of this one language. The memory of Dr. Anthon's classes is an 
enduring delight. 

Another stimulating instructor was Professor Peck, the head 
of the department of mathematics. He was a short, stout man, 
with keen, incisive voice, awkward — sometimes tumbling headlong 
over the globes and other furniture of his lecture room; but he 
had wonderful powers of inspiration in a branch of learning which 
is not likely to arouse enthusiasm. He once became very elo- 
quent in a demonstration upon mathematical grounds of the 
inevitable evolution of the solar system from a large body of 
gaseous matter distributed irregularly through space. He too was 
one of the men we loved, and this in spite of his irascibility. 
There was a tradition that he had once challenged to personal 
combat, then and there, a student whom he had detected in some 
dishonourable act. He used to denounce the pranks we tried 
to play upon him for their lack of originality. We might make 
him the object, he said, of any practical joke we liked, if it were 
really new and good, but to witness our stale and stupid per- 
formances year after year wearied his soul. We respected this 
view of the matter, and as no one could invent anything new, 
we left him in peace. 

Another favourite of ours was Dr. Schmidt, professor of Greek 



10 EARLY LIFE 

and Roman antiquities. He was a thin, prim, precise old man, 
but with a delicious sense of humour. Once he fell upon us sud- 
denly while we were chucking some geese up a flight of steps 
leading to Professor's Nairne's room. "O gentlemen," he said, 
"please desist! Your labours are unnecessary. There are quite 
enough of these here now!" 

The college statutes seemed almost as long as the Mosaic law 
and stood before us as a constant temptation to break their com- 
mandments. Punishments were prescribed with mathematical 
precision. Three admonitions made one warning, and after three 
warnings the culprit had to go. 

I was involved quite early in the toils of this rigid code. I 
had been in college only two weeks, when, in the geometry class, 
I found a fellow-student in some trouble over a proposition in 
Euclid and tried to help him out. We were caught. It was Fri- 
day afternoon about half-past twelve. "You will appear before 
the faculty at one," said Professor Van Amringe. We trembled 
and were silent. At the appointed hour we waited around the 
President's door as men might await trial before inquisitors. 
Suddenly we were ushered into the awful presence. The pro- 
fessors were seated in a semicircle with President Barnard in 
the middle and Van Amringe, the secretary, at a table by his 
side, while the two wings, with Anthon, Drisler, Joy, Nairne, 
Rood, and the rest, stretched around us as if to enclose us in 
their fatal clasp. We were made to stand up in the middle of 
this semicircle. Van Amringe had written out the charge, and it 
was read to us with great solemnity. What had we to say? 
There wasn't anything to say. A confession of guilt was our 
only refuge, and we were told to retire while the faculty delib- 
erated upon our doom. We went out and stayed around the 
door for ten minutes. We were told to re-enter and were in- 
formed that an admonition would be inflicted upon us and that 
we must return in one week from that day to have it adminis- 
tered. So a week later back we came, but during this time we 
had become greatly hardened. The admonition did not seem 
nearly so terrible as in those first awful moments. The good 
Dr. Barnard delivered it to us quite mildly, considering, no 



COLLEGE LIFE ii 

doubt, our youth and inexperience, for he told us that the offence 
we had committed, although great, was not the most unpardon- 
able in the category of college misdemeanours. What we after- 
wards saw convinced us that this was true. The admonition was 
long, eloquent and edifying, and if we were not the better for it, 
the fault was ours. 

This was the only time I was ever "caught" at anything — not 
that there were no other offences far worse than this trifling 
dereliction. There were pranks quite too numerous to record 
here, but after this first experience I became wiser in covering 
up my tracks and was indeed soon considered by the faculty one 
of the model students, a reputation I little deserved. I have 
never had any remorse, however, for these escapades, and I look 
on them even to-day with more satisfaction in their success than 
shame at their depravity. Some of the other students were not so 
lucky. Conkling, for example, a fellow with a long, solemn face, 
was always caught and got warnings and all sorts of things for 
the most trifling offences. 

In the various classrooms I sat next to Hamilton Fish, Jr. 
This was not on account of any particular affinity we had for each 
other, but because Fish and Foulke both began with F. On my 
other side was Montague Geer, afterwards rector of St. Paul's 
in New York. Fish was the son of the distinguished Secretary 
of State under Grant. During our first year he used to be called 
"Fresh Fish" by the upper classmen to distinguish him from his 
brother Nicholas, then a Junior. Fish was by nature a politician. 
He was the leading spirit among the Delta Psi's in our class. 
This fraternity had secured a large number of members and was 
proceeding to appropriate entirely too many of the offices, as the 
rest of us thought. So the members of the Delta Phi (to which 
I belonged), together with those of the Psi Upsilon, made up a 
slate for the next four years, distributing the class presidencies, 
orations. Goodwood cup, etc. We allotted a number of places, 
not unreasonably large, to those who didn't belong to any of the 
fraternities. Then we went to these neutrals and told them of 
the iniquity of the Delta Psi's in appropriating so many positions, 
and at first we got their support, but somehow this plan of ours 



12 EARLY LIFE 

leaked out and they became lukewarm. I was candidate for the 
class presidency in the Sophomore year, but was defeated by a 
majority of one, after a campaign as intense as if the fate of 
the world depended on it. I never had good luck in winning 
elections, but, notwithstanding this, at the end of the four years 
I had filled as many offices and delivered as many "orations" as 
any other man in the class. A New York newspaper remarked 
of one of these speeches that it represented the "usual fervid 
style of college eloquence." To judge from a sample which I 
now blush to read, the description was accurate. But the style 
was popular then. After my class-day "oration" my companions 
tried to lift me on their shoulders and carry me around in 
triumph. I have always been sorry I didn't let them do it. In 
my Junior year I presided at a memorable "impeachment" trial 
held from day to day, in which some of my colleagues in the 
Delta Phi were convicted, with others, of issuing an unauthorised 
Columbiad, or College annual, and the impartiality of my rul- 
ings was questioned (with perfect justice) by the men on the 
other side. After conviction, however, the culprits were all "par- 
doned" and restored to membership. 

At the end of the Freshman year I found myself at the head 
of the class, a place I retained during the three remaining years, 
taking by virtue of this rank the right to deliver the Greek saluta- 
tory poem at Commencement. There were some inconveniences 
attached to this position; for instance, I had to keep the attend- 
ance roll at chapel, and I sat in a special chair in front of the 
chancel to be seen of all the faculty and with no chance furtively 
to prepare for the next recitation. The Greek salutatory too was 
a nuisance. There was no opportunity to distinguish one's self 
in a language that nobody could understand, and after working 
for weeks over reluctant hexameters it was not flattering to have 
Dr. Drisler rewrite nearly the whole thing. 

I also won a number of prizes — a Greek prize of three hundred 
dollars, for instance, for the best examination on iEschylus' 
Agamemnon. A number of my classmates offered to bet me two 
to one that I would win it. I was not so certain, and I "hedged" 
by betting a hundred dollars that I would not, so that in any 
event I was sure of two hundred. This money I soon spent in 



LAW SCHOOL 13 

two weeks of delight with some boon companions in the White 
Mountains. 

In the Philolexian (our principal literary society) George L. 
Rives (afterwards Assistant Secretary of State under Cleveland) 
and I once contended for first and second prizes when there were 
no other competitors. We agreed beforehand to divide the 
money whichever way the thing went and then paid no further 
attention to the matter. 

During these four years of college life I became a good deal of 
a scamp, and had it not been for a foundation of better princi- 
ples which sometimes asserted themselves in later life, I might 
well have fallen permanently into evil ways. It is not wise to 
trust a boy with a night key and with all the money he wants 
and then hope that he will turn out safe and sound. 

■LAW SCHOOL 

' I had determined to follow the profession of the law, largely on 
account of the opportunities it might offer for a public career, 
and after graduation in 1869 I went to the Columbia Law School, 
which was then in Lafayette Place, nearly opposite the old Astor 
Library. 

There was a striking difference between our conduct at the 
Law School and our behaviour while we were still undergraduates. 
The college statutes had offered us a constant challenge, and we 
considered it a sort of moral duty to break them. But when we 
got to the Law School there were no statutes to violate; we were 
free to do as we liked. We might come as we pleased, go as we 
pleased, attend lectures or not as we pleased; the result was that 
we chose to attend them regularly and to behave ourselves. 
There was no play here, it was all earnest work, and if we did 
not do it properly the consequences would fall wholly upon our- 
selves. Dr. Theodore Dwight, who was at the head of the Law 
School, was a prince of instructors. He unfolded to us so simply, 
though clearly, the principles of 

"The lawless science of our law, 
That codeless myriad of precedent, 
That wilderness of single instances," 



14 EARLY LIFE 

that it became in our eyes not a mere chaotic mass of decisions, 
but an orderly and symmetrical science. Whatever may be the 
advantages of the present "case system" in the study of juris- 
prudence, I cannot doubt that a systematic introduction to the 
general principles of the law ought to precede the discussion of 
individual cases. 

We were all fond of Professor Dwight. He was not only our 
instructor, but our ideal and our mentor, to whom we applied 
for advice and counsel and upon whose friendship we could always 
rely. But, alas! one thing will always come to my memory 
whenever I think of him: the beautiful set of false teeth which 
used to "wabble" as he lectured! 

I also attended an evening course of lectures on constitutional 
law by Dr. Francis Lieber, and I remember well the impressive 
distinction he made between English and American fundamental 
law. The English had what he called a "crescive constitution," 
like a living organism, conforming to its environment in the same 
way that the English Common Law had developed, whereas the 
American Constitution was fixed and embodied in a single un- 
changeable instrument. He did not then foresee how flexible 
that document was soon to become. He had a very comprehen- 
sive mind and was quite too discursive for the limits of the 
hour devoted to each lecture. He began with an elaborate in- 
troduction and developed his initial propositions so exhaustively 
that before he got fairly into the theme the hour was up and he 
had to prance over the main branches of his subject with great 
speed and to very little effect. 

I desired to become a member of the bar before graduation, 
and therefore in the early summer of 1870 I presented myself 
for examination with many other applicants before a committee 
appointed by the Supreme Court and I was admitted. 

An amusing thing happened at this examination. One of the 
candidates, when asked to define a court, attempted to give Black- 
stone's definition, "A place wherein justice is judicially adminis- 
tered," but got it mixed and answered, "A place where injustice 
is judiciously administered." Perhaps his definition was almost 
as accurate as the other one. 



THE LIBERAL CLUB 15 

THE LIBERAL CLUB 

While I was at the Law School, and for some time afterwards, 
I was a member of the Liberal Club. We held weekly meetings 
in a hall near the Cooper Union building. When I joined the 
club Mr. Moran (who had been at the head of the Erie Railroad) 
was its president. He was followed by Horace Greeley, and he 
in turn by James Parton, the biographer. While there were many 
bright men and a few eminent men among the members, there 
were also a number of queer fish, and it was on the whole a 
rather indiscriminate lot, containing many extreme radicals. A 
paper was read at each meeting, followed by a discussion which 
was very animated, often witty, and sometimes quite personal. 
Nearly every man had his particular hobby. One was continu- 
ally insisting upon "enlightened self-interest" as the most powerful 
incentive of human progress, another was strong on "altruism." 
Mr. IMoran and Mr. Henry Demarest Lloyd were radical free 
traders; Horace Greeley was perhaps the leading protectionist 
in the country. At one meeting Mr. Greeley gave us a paper on 
the subject, and Mr. Lloyd criticised it, insisting that the laws 
of supply and demand furnished a much safer standard for prices 
than the determination of a few hundred "idiots" in Washington. 
In reply Mr. Greeley in his sleepy, drawling, benevolent manner 
said: "The young man thinks it would be better to have the value 
of a commodity determined by supply and demand rather than by 
a few hundred idiots (I think the young man called them) in 
Congress. Now I want the young man to remember that one of 
the first of these idiots was George Washington, and then we come 
down to such other idiots as Henry Clay and Daniel Webster — 
why, I once heard Daniel Webster make a speech on the subject, 
and he spoke almost as well as the young man did (the young 
man made a very good speech)," etc. 

While Mr. Greeley was presiding, messengers from the Tribune 
would come with proofs of editorials which he had written 
for the next morning's issue, and he corrected them while still 
in the chair. He was much troubled with insomnia at night, 
and on the other hand he used to fall asleep continually in the 
daytime. He would frequently fall fast asleep in his chair when 



i6 EARLY LIFE 

presiding at our meetings, with his head thrown back and his 
mouth wide open, giving us the amplest opportunity to look down 
his throat. While he was really a very eminent man, he was 
grotesque. He used to ride in Central Park nearly every morn- 
ing. Here I often passed him, his feet dangling, his trousers half 
way up to his knees, his body bouncing up and down on his 
horse, his arms flapping, and his mind evidently very far away. 

Some of the papers read before the club were extraordinary, 
and the ideas expressed in debate still more so. Dr. Lambert, for 
instance, had a notion that since the brain consisted of two prin- 
cipal parts, one on the right side and one on the left, the proper 
way to economise in intellectual effort was to use alternately first 
the left and then the right part, letting the other rest meanwhile. 
Thus a man could keep constantly at work. He also had great 
faith in what he called "brainial" food for the nourishment of the 
intellect. He once invited the club to a luncheon at Jones' 
restaurant. The bill of fare consisted wholly of fish, oysters, lob- 
sters, and other similar dishes which would make us all mental 
giants if we stuck to the diet he prescribed. For a time I got a 
good deal of amusement out of the Liberal Club, though not much 
instruction, but after my marriage my wife found the motley gath- 
ering so uncongenial that we attended but seldom and at last gave 
it up altogether. 

While I was at the Law School my health was quite poor. I 
had suffered from a severe attack of malarial fever. This was 
followed by symptoms of pulmonary tuberculosis which lasted 
some two years. Dr. Alonzo Clark was my physician. His pre- 
scription was hard to follow in a city like New York: "Never less 
than eight hours a day in the open air." But I undertook the 
task. I rose early, had a horseback ride in Central Park, and 
then after breakfast walked from my home to the Law School, 
a mile and a half. After lectures I walked another mile to the 
office where I was a student, then rode home on top of an omnibus 
early in the afternoon, and then around the park in my light 
wagon, and I slept close to an open window at night. 

The following summer (1870) I went with my father across 
the continent, spending some time among the Indians in Nebraska, 
visiting California and Oregon and returning by way of Panama. 



MARRIAGE 17 

I came back in much better condition, and the following winter, 
under a course of treatment similar to that of the previous year, 
the symptoms entirely disappeared, never to return. 



MARRIAGE 

My visit to California was fraught with important consequences. 
As my father and I were returning from the South Grove of Big 
Trees back to Calaveras we met another wagon going to the 
grove. In it was a gentleman who introduced himself to my 
father as Mark E. Reeves of Cincinnati. With him were his wife, 
his daughter, and his son, a lad of perhaps twelve years. I par- 
ticularly noticed the daughter, an enthusiastic, attractive girl of 
eighteen, with dark brown eyes. They were going, they told us, 
to Yosemite. That was also our destination, and two days later 
I strolled out from the primitive hostelry of ISIr. Hutchings in 
the valley to the little bridge across the Merced River to meet 
their cavalcade as they rode up. From that time we travelled 
together, and when the file of riders wound through the woods 
there were generally two who lagged behind the rest. The scenery 
was superb, the air exhilarating, the companionship delightful. 
Our party remained together the rest of the summer, going to 
Portland and the Columbia River, and afterwards to Los Angeles 
(which was then a village). We travelled by the Holliday line 
of steamships, for there was hardly a railroad in that part of the 
country. 

We separated late in the summer, my father and I to return by 
sea via Panama, and Mr. Reeves and his family by rail. I vis- 
ited them at their residence in Richmond, Indiana, the following 
winter on my return from Nebraska, whither I had gone, 
charged with assisting in the defence of five Winnebago Indians 
indicted for scalping a white man.^ It was not long after this 
that our engagement was announced. The following summer Mr. 
Reeves and his family sailed for Europe and were gone over a 
year. I joined them in Sweden in June of 1872 at a little town 
called Lila Edet on the Gotha Canal. We all travelled together 
during the summer, and the marriage took place in Paris at the 

~ See Protean Papers, p. 193. 



i8 EARLY LIFE 

American Legation on the loth of October. We had our wed- 
ding journey in Spain, returning to America early in the winter, 
when I resumed the practice of the law in which I was by this 
time actively engaged. Looking in retrospect upon a married life 
of fifty years, I think few have been more happy. Six children 
were born to us. Two of these, a little boy and girl, passed away 
in childhood. Four daughters remain, all married and with fam- 
ilies. I cannot recall that during all these years we have ever 
had from any child an angry or reproachful word or look. 



BLOOMFIELD 

It was not long after our return from Europe, following the 
wedding journey, that we went to live at Bloomfield, New Jersey. 
Here we resided for about three years, the expense of a residence 
in New York being too great for our income. We kept house in 
quite a simple way. I went back and forth to my law office 
every day and carried a basket for the household provisions which 
I bought in Washington Market on my way home. But at this 
time I was engaged in a long case before a referee: the case of 
Dr. Foote against the Middletown Insane Asylum. The testimony 
taken at the hearings by the stenographer became so voluminous 
that it would fill the basket and sometimes I had to bring this 
testimony home to work on the case at night. On such occasions 
there was often little to eat, so that it became an object of great 
interest to my wife and the cook, when the basket was opened, 
to see whether it was filled with chops and chickens or with pa- 
pers in the Foote case. 

Bloomfield was then an old-fashioned New Jersey village with 
an ancient stone church at the end of the green and with a fringe 
of newer houses on the outside. There were frequent robberies 
in the place (which was only an hour's distance from New York) 
and there was no local police. We had a burglar alarm in our 
house, and Theodore, our coloured servant, had an antiquated 
pepper-box pistol which he used for the defence of the property. 
He slept in an attic room where there was a little balcony. When- 
ever the burglar alarm sounded he would seize the pepper-box, 
rush out to the balcony, and as the thief ran away from the house 



LAW PRACTICE IN NEW YORK 19 

he would try to pepper him with shot, but so ineffectually that 
after a while the burglars did not even take the trouble to run 
but would walk off leisurely while Theodore banged away at them 
in vain. 

At last the citizens of Bloomfield had to< organise their own 
police, and we took turns ourselves in patrolling the town. We 
went in pairs, and our turns came once every month. We never 
caught anybody, but when our patrol became known the rob- 
beries diminished, though they increased in neighbouring towns. 
We afterwards found that the burglars had a house in the next 
block to ours which they had packed with plunder taken from 
the neighbourhood. In spite of the poor police arrangements, the 
Jersey courts were good, and little mercy was shown to the delin- 
quents when they were caught. 

LAW PRACTICE IN NEVl^ YORK 

I had begun the practice of law while still at the Law School, 
as a clerk in the office of Davies and Work, one of the leading 
firms of the city, in which Henry E. Davies, formerly Chief Judge 
of the Court of Appeals, was of counsel. After my graduation I 
had formed a partnership with one of the students in my class, 
a middle-aged man, Francis Malocsay, a Hungarian refugee. We 
opened offices in modest rooms at the corner of Broadway and 
Liberty streets. 

One of our first occupations was the selection of an office boy. 
We chose him by a very imperfect kind of natural selection, to 
wit, merely upon his looks. We had advertised in one of the 
daily papers, and when we came down in the morning there was 
a long line of boys in the hall and on the staircase all the way 
from the street. It was an aggregation containing much physical 
deformity and mental imbecility. After a brief enquiry into the 
respective disqualifications of one after another of the applicants, 
we took George upon the strength of a pair of bright eyes, a 
cheerful, merry voice, and intelligent, handsome features. But 
we soon learned 

"There is no art 
To find the mind's complexion in the face." 



20 EARLY LIFE 

George was bright enough, but he was one of the greatest little 
rascals on the face of the earth. At first we thought he was a 
marvel. He could serve legal papers better than any one I have 
ever known. Once we wanted to serve a summons upon Daniel 
Drew, a well-known "financier," but then apparently in hiding. 
Nobody could find him, and a number of suits against him were 
hanging fire on that account. I despatched George to serve him 
with the papers. After a few hours he returned and cried tri- 
umphantly: "I've done it. I went to his house and they told me 
he was sick, but I sat down in the hall and said I'd wait till he 
got well. The butler ordered me out but I wouldn't go; then he 
went into a back room to talk with somebody. I felt sure Mr. 
Drew was there, so I followed and opened the door and served 
the summons on him in bed." Our claim was among the few that 
were paid. It is easy to see that such a boy was valuable 
in a practice which, like that of most beginners, consisted 
largely of claims against decrepit financiers and other lame 
ducks. 

Moreover, George seemed to have a great number of clients of 
his own whom he brought to the office. We could not under- 
stand how it was that he had so many friends who wanted to 
engage in litigation, until one day one of these clients related 
to us George's accounts of our wonderful influence over judges 
and our control of juries which inevitably lured victory to perch 
upon our banners. I had noticed that whenever George brought 
a new client there was pretty sure to come a request for an 
increase of wages, so that the little scamp had his own interest in 
the general prosperity of our business. 

I caught him, however, several times in flagrante delicto. Once 
when I sent him to copy a record at the Registrar's office, I spied 
him playing billiards, and when he came back there was a cock- 
and-bull story that somie one else was using the book so that he 
had to wait for it. He got into trouble at last with the police 
and we had to discharge him. Thereupon a little Frenchman, the 
keeper of a restaurant near by, appeared with a long bill for 
lunches furnished to George, claimed that he had given him credit 
because he worked for us and wanted to know if we would not 
pay. It was monstrous that such a bill should be repudi- 



LAW PRACTICE IN NEW YORK 21 

ated, "Si j'etais un tailleur, monsieur! Le tailleur on paye quand 
on veut, ntais pojir la nourriture!" 

The law practice of the firm of Foulke and Malocsay grew 
slowly. Our arrangements were very primitive. We two with 
the office boy composed the entire establishment; later we had a 
student. Our method of keeping accounts was simple. If we 
had to pay the office boy or buy coal I took one-half of the money 
out of my pocket and Malocsay took one-half out of his. When 
a fee came in we cashed the check and divided it in the same 
way. Our offices were just under the rooms of the Associated 
Press, and boys kept running up and down the stairs back of us 
all day and all night with messages to and from the different 
newspapers. We sometimes looked down upon curious sights from 
our windows: the procession, for instance, when the Grand Duke 
Alexis came to New York; and the great crowd which assembled 
and waited in vain for hours to see a man fly from Trinity Church 
steeple up to Fulton Street, as announced in the morning papers, 
the announcement being a hoax by the actor Sothern, who was a 
great practical joker. 

We had a good deal of law business in Brooklyn, where my 
partner lived. One day we went together to try a case in the 
City Court there and found no ferry boats running and the river 
covered with ice. Upon this we walked across in safety, arriving 
before the opening of court. When the judge was told what we 
had done we were rewarded by the announcement that he wouldn't 
require the attorneys on the other side to do any such thing as 
that, whereupon he postponed the case. 

I recall a trial where our firm had been retained by a widow 
to collect money on a life-insurance policy which her husband had 
taken out a year or two before his death. The insurance com- 
pany defended the case upon the ground that the deceased had 
represented that his heart was in sound condition, whereas he was 
then suffering from a serious valvular lesion which subsequently 
caused his death. 

The trial took place at Riverhead, then a little country town 
in the eastern part of Long Island. My partner and I were 
astounded when the physicians of two other New York insurance 
companies both testified that a few days before the policy was 



22 EARLY LIFE 

issued they had examined and rejected the man on account of 
organic disease of the heart. The case seemed pretty dark for us, 
but fortunately the two doctors did not quite agree as to the 
symptoms. I cross-examined them thoroughly as to their knowl- 
edge of the valves of the heart as well as a lot of other things 
which were mere jargon to the jurymen. On the whole the physi- 
cians sustained themselves fairly well, though there were trifling 
inaccuracies. They were decidedly conceited as to their own 
attainments. 

In the meantime a plain-looking country doctor who happened 
to be a witness in another case was sitting near me. He seemed 
irritated at the superior airs of his city brethren and pointed out 
to me some weak points in their testimony. It occurred to me 
it would be a good thing to call him, and I did so. The examina- 
tion was to the following tenor: 

"Doctor, how long have you been engaged in the practice of 
medicine?" 

"Thirty-seven years." 

"Where?" 

"Right here, sir, in this immediate neighbourhood." 

"Doctor, I desire to call your attention to the following symp- 
toms and ask what disease of the heart, if any, they indicate." 

Here I repeated all the symptoms testified to by both the physi- 
cians called by the defendant. / was very particular not to leave 
anything out. His answer was: ' 

"No disease under the sun." 

"What do you mean by that?" 

"I mean that such symptoms as you describe cannot possibly 
all exist together." 

"Have you ever examined a man to see if he had any organic 
disease of the heart?" 

"Hundreds of times." 

"How can you tell?" 

"Well, I just put my ear close to the heart like this (showing 
the jury) and then if I hear something that sounds like the purring 
of a cat I know that he has some organic trouble." 

By this time the jury had pricked up their ears. Here was 
no stranger, no conceited city man talking about a stethoscope 



LAW PRACTICE IN NEW YORK 23 

or sphygmograph, and a lot of other incomprehensible things with 
unpronounceable names, but this was the good doctor who had 
pulled them safely through their own afflictions, who had brought 
their babies into the world and treated them for measles, mumps 
and scarlet fever. There was no humbug about such a man as 
that. 

Now there had been no evidence of anything like the purring 
of a cat. What then could be plainer than the conclusion that 
if these foolish city doctors found anything wrong it must have 
been some mere temporary and functional disorder which did not 
invalidate the written representations made by the deceased? 

I became quite impassioned in my closing address. I resented 
with special bitterness the contention of the other side that we 
had offered no evidence to contradict the physicians they had 
called, and I read to them with great solemnity the certificate 
made in the policy by the company's own physician that the 
man was sound. I was proceeding to demolish the medical attain- 
ments of the two city upstarts and to draw the inevitable conclu- 
sion from the absence of all "purring" in the heart of the de- 
ceased. I knew the jury was with me, but suddenly I felt a tap 
upon my shoulder and heard the word "Stop" from the lips of my 
partner. "The case is settled. They give us seventy-five per 
cent of all we ask." 

"The jury will be dismissed," said the judge, and he added, 
"The only thing I regret is that I couldn't hear the end of that 
purr-oration." 

I grew very fond of my profession. There was a keen delight 
in preparing new schemes to circumvent the adversary and, in 
jury trials, to convince the twelve honest men and true that all 
the merits of the universe encircled the cause of the client whom 
we represented. Lawyers are often accused of saying on behalf of 
their clients things they do not believe; of seeking to 

"Make the worse appear 
The better reason to perplex and dash 
Maturest counsels." 

I think their shortcomings do not lie so much in that direction 
as in the line of another frailty of human nature, and that is the 



24 EARLY LIFE 

tendency, after one has once become a partisan, to see things only 
through glasses so strongly coloured that the white light of truth 
will not pass through. I do not think I ever accepted a retainer 
when I believed that my client was lying to me or was giving 
me a case tainted with fraud or injustice. But it is not a hard 
thing to believe your client. He can nearly always put his side 
of the question in the best light, and once having made his cause 
your own, it is not hard to believe that it is always the other man's 
contention and the other man's evidence which is replete with 
iniquity. 

The clients of young lawyers (and mine were no exception) 
are often queer fish. Once after the firm of Foulke and Malocsay 
had dissolved, I was sitting at my desk after everybody else, office 
boy and all, had gone home. A faint tap was heard at the door. 
"Come in," I cried, and there entered a small young man with a 
thin, pale face and pointed chin, with a sharp Hebrew nose, 
greasy, black hair and soft, dark eyes. He was none too clean 
in appearance. The stubble of a very black beard was upon 
his cheeks and chin. He wore a shabby fur cap and a long 
caftan trimmed with fur reaching nearly to his feet. He 
walked in very quietly — you could not hear his step upon the 
carpet. 
"Is lawyer Foulke in?" 
"He is." 

"Is this lawyer Foulke?" 
"It is; what can I do for you?" 

"Mr. Foulke," he began in a singsong voice, "I belong to de 
congregation Chebra Kadisha Ahaveth Joseph, vitch has a syna- 
gogue at de corner of Elderidge unt Division Street in a beelding 
vitch is owned by Felix Marx, unt de synagogue is in de tird 
story of de beelding, at de top. Unt vat you tink dat Felix Marx 
does? He rents de second story of de beelding to de congregation 
Chebra Kadisha Ahaveth Israel, and sometimes d?re is some 
strangers dat come and dey would gife a leetle money to de 
synagogue, but dey stop on de vay up at de odder congregation, 
for dey don't know de difference; so ve don't get none of de 
money at all ; and den Felix Marx he promise us dat he put in a 
great big vide iron staircase up to de synagogue, but instead of 



LAW PRACTICE IN NEW YORK 25 

dat he leave in a dirty little vooden staircase, unt if der vas to be 
a fire in dat beelding not a soul vould escape alive, Unt de place 
vere he vos to put dat new staircase, he rent dat place to a 
butcher! Mister Foulke," he concluded, in an insinuating voice, 
though somewhat exhausted by the above recital uttered all in 
one breath, "Mr. Foulke, don't you tink you could get injunc- 
tion against dat butcher?" 

I confess that the thought of seeking retribution at the hands 
of the butcher for the sins of Felix Marx struck me as original, 
but the remedy happened in this case to be an easy one. So I 
told my visitor to leave the matter with me and I would see 
what could be done. I reported the premises to the Department 
of Buildings as dangerous. An inspection showed that the com- 
plaint was well founded, Marx was ordered either to tear down 
the building (an ancient wooden structure) or else to put in a 
fire-proof stairway up to the synagogue. Within two weeks the 
butcher was ejected and the work began. That any lawyer in New 
York could reach such a result so quickly was a marvel to the 
congregation Chebra Kadisha Ahaveth Joseph, and I soon had 
the greater part of the business of the members of that congrega- 
tion. This business was of a motley character. My original client 
was overtaken not long afterwards by misfortune. He had been 
engaged in the fur business and he had a partner, one Harris 
Levy, who bought and sold the goods and furnished the expe- 
rience, while my man supplied the capital. But the affair 
ended with that exchange of capital for experience which is 
not uncommon in such cases; for one day my client, who had 
committed some trifling misdemeanour, had been arrested by 
the police, ready enough to pounce upon a poor devil of a Jew, 
and had been locked up in the station house overnight. Next 
morning when he was set at liberty and went back to his little 
shop he found it entirely empty; caps, gloves, muffs, every 
vestige of anything salable, had disappeared together with his 
thrifty partner. He came to me tearing his hair and besought 
me to rescue him from ruin. I told him nothing could be done 
till we had first discovered where the stock had been hidden. It 
seems he suspected a certain pawnbroker in Center Street, but 
he had no proof, and the pawnbroker vigorously denied ever hav- 



26 EARLY LIFE 

ing seen such a thing as a stock of furs. Some detective work was 
necessary and as there was no money with which to employ any 
one else, I undertook the task myself. I prepared the papers 
in a replevin suit against the delinquent partner and the suspected 
receiver of the goods, alleging fraud and conspiracy; and pocket- 
ing the summons and complaint, I went to the shop of the pawn- 
broker, clad in a rather shabby suit of clothes and with as guilty 
a look upon my face as I could manage to put on. There were 
one or two other persons in the shop. I called him aside and 
told him I wanted to speak to him particularly on some private 
business. He answered gruffly, "Ve don't do no private beesness 
here," but when I pulled out of my pocket some jewels of con- 
siderable value and showed them to him he added in a lower 
tone and with a suggestive smile, "But I vill see you." There- 
upon he conducted me through a dark passage leading to a little 
room in the rear of the store. On the way through the passage I 
noticed that there were some shelves on the right-hand side, and 
as I followed him slowly I put out my hands along the wall to 
find out what they contained. I felt the soft touch of fur against 
my fingers and, suddenly striking a match and taking one of the 
caps in my hand, I found in the inside the name of the firm to 
which my client had belonged. The pawnbroker turned upon 
me and asked what I was doing, whereupon, quickly putting back 
the cap upon the shelf, I produced from my pocket the copy of 
the summons and complaint in the suit and served them upon 
him. He was wild with rage, jumping up and down in his excite- 
ment. I did not stop to listen to his ravings, but made my way 
back to my office, where my client was awaiting me and I commu- 
nicated to him the happy result of my enquiries. 

It was some months before the case could be brought to trial. 
One day I was walking up Broadway on my way home when 
whom should I meet but my client. He was looking more cheer- 
ful than I had seen him at any time since his calamity, and 
he had with him a stout, florid Hebrew with a red necktie and 
a large diamond pin in his shirt. He said to me: "Mr. Foulke, I 
vant to present you to my friend, Mr. Emmanuel. Mr. Emman- 
uel, dis is my lawyer, Mr. Foulke." Mr. Emmanuel seemed to be 
quite well acquainted with the state of affairs in regard to the 



LAW PRACTICE IN NEW YORK 27 

suit, for, taking me apart just around the corner of a side street, 
he asked me: 

"Dis case against Mr. Harris Levy and de pawnbroker, ven 
will it be tried?" 

I told him probably in a few weeks; whereupon he added, 
handing me his card: 

"Now, Mr. Foulke, before dis case comes up I vant you to tell 
me shtist exactly vot you vant to prove and shust so many vit- 
nesses you vant, you shall have dem" 

I made no answer and turned away, at which he seemed greatly 
surprised. He evidently could not understand the conduct of a 
lawyer who would not seize such opportunities. I soon after- 
wards settled the case, a settlement favourable to my client, but 
my motive in making it was largely the fear that although the 
case was a just one, it might be supported by manufactured 
evidence. 

I had charge of certain pieces of property in Chatham Street 
leased to Hebrew tenants, and on the first of each month I used 
to betake myself thither to collect the rent. On one occasion I 
found the shop of Mr, Samuels, one of these tenants, closed, and 
in the door was the announcement of an assignment in insolvency 
proceedings. Failing to gain admittance, I returned to my office, 
to find Mr. Samuels awaiting me. His first remark was, "Maybe 
you vas up to de store to get de rent." 

"Yes, I have just come from there, and I found a notice that 
you have failed in business and have made an assignment." 

"Yes, ve had a leetle misfortune, but de rent is. all right, Mr. 
Foulke." 

Here he produced a corpulent roll of bank bills from his 
pocket, from which he counted out the requisite sum. 

"You vill please make de receipt," he added, "in de name of 
L. Samuels and not in de name of Myer L. Samuels, and if you 
should ever go up dere again and find de door closed and a notice 
like dat — a notice of an assignment — ^you shust give two raps and 
den three raps like dis (showing me), an' ve let you in. For de 
rent is always right, Mr. Foulke." 

Although a large city is the place of widest opportunity for 
the old and experienced practitioner, it is by no means the best 



28 EARLY LIFE 

place for a beginner. If he has conducted a skilful cross- 
examination or made a good speech to the jury, the fame of 
it is not spread abroad as it would be in a country town. The 
people of a great city commonly take little interest in the ordi- 
nary proceedings of their tribunals, although some who are actu- 
ally present when a young lawyer makes a hit may afterwards 
be of service to him in his career. 

I remember a small case I once had in one of the District 
Courts against a publisher. The man had attempted some tri- 
fling deception and in an impassioned appeal to the jury I held 
up his conduct to reprobation, denouncing him with vehemence, 
and I won my verdict. 

That afternoon I saw him walking into my office. My first 
impression was that he had come to commit some act of violence, 
and I rose rather quickly from my chair so as to be ready for 
him. But, no! In the friendliest manner possible he laid before 
me the facts in two other cases much more important than the 
one in which I had just defeated him, in which he claimed that 
he had been wronged and he wanted me to pound the other 
fellow in the same way I had just pounded him. 

While I was young in practice I improved every possible oppor- 
tunity to attend celebrated trials. Among these was the Jumel 
will case. I also heard a part of the closing arguments in the 
suit brought by Theodore Tilton against Henry Ward Beecher 
for criminal conversation. I remember well a passage in the 
speech of William A. Beach, the leading counsel for the plaintiff. 
His diction was superb. Looking over the delegates for Plymouth 
Church, who attended in large numbers, he said: "The defend- 
ant's counsel wished for the hundred eyes of Argus; he has them 
(sweeping his hand toward that part of the room occupied by 
this delegation), and more too. He wished for the hundred 
arms of Briareus; he has them, and more too. And he had no 
need to wish for the gold of Midas, for he has that a hundred 
fold." 

REMOVAL TO INDIANA 

But I was not long to have the advantage of hearing these 
displays of forensic oratory. Although my law practice in New 



REMOVAL TO INDIANA 29 

York had been quite as good as a beginner had a right to expect 
and was steadily growing, there were family reasons which made 
it desirable for my wife and me to go to Richmond, Indiana, where 
her parents resided. I had received an offer of partnership from 
one of the leading lawyers of that place, Mr. Jesse P. Siddall, 
who was the local counsel for the Pan Handle Railroad Com- 
pany, a part of the Pennsylvania system. I accepted this offer 
and, after turning over the cases on my docket to Mr. William 
W. Ladd, an able lawyer and one of my former colleagues at the 
Law School, I gave up my New York office and my Bloomfield 
home, and early in the year 1876 removed to Indiana. 



CHAPTER II 

LIFE IN INDIANA 

From the abyss of the tumultuous street. 

The roar of the great city and its glare, 

The multitude whose feverish pulses beat 

With evanescent hopes and wild despair, — 

In my young manhood did I come to thee, 

And found the balm of thy serenity. 

And evermore, threading thy quiet ways, 

Reclining by thy hesitating streams, 

Where sheltering sycamores hid me from the blaze 

Of sumjner suns — half waking, half in dreams — 

I did perceive thy sylvan beauty grow 

Into my soul until I came to know 

I loved thee, that thy heart had answered mine ; 

And all the more, now that my days decline. 

Thy spirit broods upon me. Not the sea, 

Nor the unutterable majesty 

Of Alpine peak, nor the white foam and spray 

Of glittering cataract can so win their way 

Into my heart. I have dwelt with thee too long 

To love another while thy beech trees bend 

Their lowly limbs to greet me as a friend. 

And take from me the tribute of a song. 

— To Indiana, Centennial Ode, igi6. 

THE RICHMOND HOME 

My life has been a singularly happy one. It has had no disas- 
trous episodes, no serious disappointments. Doubtless this was 
partly due to the fact that ambition has not often outrun the 
attainable and that I have been content with such good things as 
have fallen to my lot, among them a home life ideal in its external 
setting as well as on its spiritual side and such companionships 
and friendships as have been stimulating at the time and, for the 
most part, steadfast throughout many years. 

This home life has centred in a place far removed from the city 

30 



THE RICHMOND HOME 31 

of New York, Richmond, Indiana, was to be my abode for the 
rest of my life. In 1877, the year after coming to Richmond, I 
purchased my present residence, with a tract of three acres on the 
outskirts of the city. The house was an old one, a substantial 
brick structure, to which, some ten years later, when it became 
hard crowded by books and babies, an addition was made con- 
taining a large room for a library. This has been to all the 
family a source of continuing delight. Here against the long 
walls on either side are the books, a collection which, modest 
enough in earlier years, had grown beyond the capacity of the 
original house and embraced several thousand volumes in various 
languages and on all sorts of subjects. Such a collection has a 
way of constantly growing, and this one has now overflowed into 
still other rooms, so that to keep down the number of books, many 
that have served their purpose and are no longer needed are sent 
to the public library each year. Above the long bookcases lining 
the wall, and indeed wherever else they can be placed, are bronzes, 
marbles, plaster casts, armour, weapons, and other curios, and 
wherever there is wall space are hung paintings, gathered from 
year to year in various parts of the world, which furnish repre- 
sentative examples of the Italian, Dutch, Spanish, German and 
other schools from early times down to the present day.^ 

Here is an old Flemish tapestry, there a Renaissance cabinet in 
ebony and ivory. There are antiques of many sorts, from Baby- 
lonian tablets and Aztec effigies to coats of mail and early Norse 
implements. Little system has been followed in the choice, yet 
the specimens are most of them beautiful and living with them 
has had a decided influence in the education of our children, and 
later of our grandchildren, who often come for long visits to the 
family home.^ 



1 By careful selection in all sorts of places a good deal that is valua- 
ble has been collected. I once bought in a junk shop in Berlin an old 
painting of the Virgin and Child with St. Elizabeth and John the Bap- 
tist. It was in bad condition and in restoring it and taking it off of a 
second canvas which had been used as backing, it was identified by an 
authoritative expert as a painting of the school of the Carracci. 

2 One little girl, even before she could read, once stood before the 
rows of books, stamped her foot, and said indignantly, "There you 



32 LIFE IN INDIANA 

My study is upstairs, a large, well-lighted, airy room — the best 
room that ever a man had to work in — with a broad table in the 
middle and another in the corner for my secretary. Along one 
side is a long book-case with a working library, and on the wall 
above hang copper plates and etchings by Diirer, Rembrandt and 
others. Over the mantelpiece is a steel engraving of Roosevelt, 
and in winter there is a bright wood fire on the hearth below. 

There are trees not far from the windows and rose vines on 
a trellis where the birds sing through the long summer days. I 
hear doves and orioles, robins, redbirds, and meadow larks, and 
some of them stay through the winter too. There are others 
less attractive, sparrows and owls and innumerable flocks of black- 
birds which fly north in the spring and south in the fall. I do 
not know the names nor the songs of all of them, but I feel a 
good deal as Shakespeare did about the stars when he wrote: 

"Those earthly godfathers of heaven's lights 
That give a name to every fixed star 
Have no more profit of their shining nights 
Than we who walk and know not what they are." 

There is delight not only in the songs but in watching the 
songsters build tlieir nests and rear their broods close to the 
windows. 

The grounds have flowers in abundance, both native and exotic, 
while palms and other tropical plants come out each spring from 
the greenhouse and go back each autumn. These are the special 
care of my wife, who is filled with delight when Jacob, the gar- 
dener, brings in some choice specimen for writing desk or dining 
table. 

Why speak of all this which is the common experience of so 
many? Because it is part of that quiet joy of daily life, which 
is after all the greatest thing on earth and which has so attached 
us to this home that we would not change it for any other in 
the world. We love the sweep of the lawn, the silhouettes of the 

are, and you've got such beautiful things in you and I can't get at 
them." Another child, at the age of four years, gravely introduced a 
farmer visitor to "her friend, William Shakespeare," whose full- 
length figure adorned a stained glass window close at hand. 



THE RICHMOND HOME 33 

pine trees against the evening sky, the Triton in the fountain, 
the Pan among the bushes, the carved Venetian pozzo with its 
flowers, and the wild grapevine that climbs over the branches 
of the dead pine tree, clothing it more luxuriantly than ever did 
its own foliage. 

This is the scene against which as a background our daily life 
has been projected. 

The change from the bustle of a metropolis to these more quiet, 
yet more attractive surroundings was a radical one. Richmond 
was at that time a prosperous city of about fifteen thousand in- 
habitants in the midst of a fertile and attractive agricultural 
country. The city depended largely upon its manufactures, chiefly 
of agricultural implements. It was known as "The Quaker City 
of the West," having been settled near the beginning of the 
nineteenth century by members of the Society of Friends who had 
immigrated thither in considerable numbers, principally from 
North Carolina, on account of their objection to slavery. 

The town was attractive. There were few fine residences, but 
there were no slums; little that was ambitious, but a great deal 
that was comfortable; no fashionable society, but no "submerged 
tenth," and none of the social struggles common in the larger 
cities of the East. Nearly all the inhabitants, including a great 
many of the workmen, owned their own homes with trim door- 
yards in front of them. 

There was, moreover, an intellectual atmosphere of a rather 
simple kind. Just west of the town lay Earlham College, a 
substantial Quaker institution. There were literary societies, 
scientific societies and a public school system which was then 
one of the very best in the country. 

We remained, during the first year, at "Reeveston," the home 
of my wife's parents, a country place of some ninety acres east 
of the town. The grounds were well laid out and contained a 
small deer park, a conservatory, and a lake for fish and swans. 

At the end of this year I purchased the home which I have 
just described. It was separated from "Reeveston" by only one 
intervening place and was situated in the town of Linden Hill, a 
village embracing about eighty acres adjoining Richmond and 
containing perhaps a hundred inhabitants. This was then quite 



34 LIFE IN INDIANA 

a rural neighbourhood and formed a separate corporation. The 
town government was for many years administered by three 
trustees, of whom I was one. Our house was the town hall, 
and the deliberations of the three trustees took place in our 
dining-room. The only remaining functionary was a man who 
held in his single person the office of town clerk, treasurer, assessor, 
and marshal, at a salary of seventy-five dollars a year. Our 
annual budget was two hundred dollars, and the taxes were pro- 
portionately moderate until the general growth of both the village 
and the adjoining city led to our inclusion into the larger unit. 



THE CHARM OF INDIANA 

It was not only in our immediate surroundings that the new 
life in Richmond became a source of happiness. The Indiana 
landscape, Indiana life, and the art and literature which sprang 
from them, soon became congenial. 

When one travels through this Western country or stays in it 
for a few days or weeks only, he will find little to charm his 
imagination; the land is flat or gently undulating, the woods and 
streams and fields have little at first to startle or attract the eye. 
But it is well known that painters do not find the best subjects for 
the brush in the sublimities of the Alps or of the ocean, but in 
such quiet and homely scenes as are found, for instance, in the 
lower reaches of the Seine, to which so many distinguished artists 
have been drawn. The picturesqueness of a plain agricultural 
landscape often transcends for the purposes of art the boldest 
and most impressive natural scenery. It is in this way that the 
charm of an Indiana landscape creeps into the soul. It is closer 
and more intimate than more ambitious scenery. There is a 
peculiar attraction in the Indiana river bottoms, where the creeks 
wind sluggishly over their limestone beds underneath arching 
sycamores. These trees with their smooth, mottled trunks, as 
well as the beeches whose branches sweep close to the ground 
are peculiarly typical of this section of Indiana. 

It is this homely quality of the landscape which has led to 
the development of the Indiana school of painting, the work of 
men who have had no very wide range and who have done noth- 



THE ART ASSOCIATION 35 

ing startling in the world, but whose productions have been in- 
fused with the spirit of tranquil beauty and poetry which is 
often lacking in more ambitious efforts. And the taste of a con- 
siderable body of people has been permeated with an apprecia- 
tion of this beauty in art and literature which was no doubt 
accentuated by the spiritual hunger of those who were far away 
from the immediate means of gratifying their tastes and who, 
therefore, themselves developed the things they longed for. This 
homely quality of the soil has also led to the growth of a corre- 
sponding literature, the poetry of Riley, the character sketches of 
Abe Martin and some of the novels of Tarkington. Indiana lit- 
erature, whatever be its merits or defects, has its roots in the 
soil, and the villages and the countryside have formed its back- 
ground. 

The homespun ways of the rural population and the so-called 
Hoosier dialect, which has now all but passed away, furnished a 
natural embellishment to our literature. It was amid these sur- 
roundings that there arose a remarkable activity of the people 
in literary clubs and similar associations. These were scattered 
everywhere throughout the state and for some time were perhaps 
most prominent in this city of Richmond. Our Art Association 
is an illustration. It has had a widespread influence and has 
been followed by similar organisations in many other cities. 

THE ART ASSOCIATION 

Some twenty-five Richmond people who were interested in 
painting and sculpture and who had good pictures in their homes 
determined to have a public exhibition for the benefit of the city 
and organised an art association for the purpose. The exhibition 
was held in one of the public school buildings and was free to 
all. It consisted chiefly of pictures loaned by the citizens. The 
display was a creditable one, and it was determined to repeat 
the experiment and finally to organise a permanent association. 
We were fortunate in choosing for our president Mrs. M. F. John- 
ston, who had taken an absorbing interest in the enterprise and 
who devoted time and unflagging energy toward making the move- 
ment a permanent success. The expense was very little, only 



36 LIFE IN INDIANA 

a few hundred dollars a year. The aid of the superintendent of 
schools was enlisted in the work, and painters in all parts of the 
country willingly sent their productions for exhibition. Then 
bronzes and marbles were added to the collection, as well as tapes- 
tries and a good deal of bric-a-brac of considerable artistic merit. 
A little later a New York man, who had formerly lived in Rich- 
mond, gave five hundred dollars a year for a number of years 
to purchase a picture to be selected by the association. One of 
the members gave two prizes, one for the best picture exhibited 
by an Indiana artist, the other for the best work by a local painter. 
It was astonishing what an amount of competition these prizes 
elicited, not for their money value, which was slight, but for the 
reputation acquired in winning them. We had a number of local 
artists, and the quality of their work, sometimes crude at the 
beginning, has gone on improving until some of them are well 
known to-day over the country. In connection with our exhibi- 
tion there was usually a reception the opening night, and painters 
from other cities — Cincinnati, St. Louis, Indianapolis and Chi- 
cago — who had been brought in as members of a committee to 
pass upon the pictures, often gave us addresses upon subjects con- 
nected with their work. 

The City Council made an annual appropriation for the move- 
ment, a thing until then quite unheard of in this country. Later 
the School Board began to take a more direct interest. When 
a new High School building was erected, three large, beautiful 
rooms upon the upper floor, lighted from the ceiling, rooms well 
designed and equipped, were devoted to the Association, and a 
part of the expense of the exhibitions was assumed by the Board. 
One of these rooms is now occupied by the permanent collection 
of the Association. For during all these years we have gone on 
buying pictures, and a great deal of care and very good taste 
were shown by our various committees in their selection. A 
number of paintings have been given to us, and though we have 
not accepted all that have been offered, there are now by pur- 
chase and gift some forty pictures of excellent quality in a room 
which is open to the public. Among these are first-rate examples 
of Wm. M. Chase, Robert Reid, Ben Foster, Frank Dumond, 



LOCAL COLOUR 37 

Leonard Ochtman, John Johansen, Albert Groll, and of such men 
as Steele, Forsyth, Adams, and Bundy of Indiana. The work of 
the Association kept expanding. Our temporary exhibitions have 
now increased from two or three a year to eight or nine, so 
that it is rather an unusual thing if there is not one of Uiem to 
be seen in these rooms, in addition to our permanent collection. 
It may be a collection of water colours, of etchings or of speci- 
mens of decorative art. Just at the entrance of these rooms is a 
fountain, "The Boy with a Tortoise," one of the best bronzes of 
Janet Scudder. One of our late acquisitions is an admirable por- 
trait of Wm. M. Chase painted by himself. The Association has 
done all this out of an amount of money collected from its mem- 
bers not exceeding, on an average, a thousand dollars a year. 

The success of Richmond in this experiment has been so great 
that other cities of Indiana and elsewhere have followed our 
example. The students in the schools visit the collections as part 
of their regular work, some of them copy from the paintings or 
use them as themes from which to develop their own studies or 
for the purpose of describing and criticising them in written com- 
positions, and at the end of each school year exhibitions of their 
own work are given. The galleries are also used as the meeting 
place of the Art Study Club, the Music Study Club, and for 
other similar purposes. They are indeed a social centre for 
many kinds of cultural interests and are useful to the city in many 
ways outside their primary purpose as an art gallery. 

LOCAL COLOUR 

But I must now return to an earlier period. 

There is a good deal of local colour in a place like Richmond, 
and many genial personal incidents rise in my memory connected 
with our neighbours and friends. For instance, there were the 
Jacksons, who lived next to us. There was always something hap- 
pening there. More amusing things occurred in that household 
than in any other that I ever knew. For instance, we were much 
pestered, in our little suburb of Linden Hill, by cows, which at 
that time were permitted to run at large. Some of them showed 



38 LIFE IN INDIANA 

great dexterity in opening gates and entering premises where 
their presence was not desired. Mr. Jackson determined that 
this nuisance must be stopped. One night I heard a cow moving 
through the thicket on the Jackson side of the fence, then a 
shot rang out in the darkness, and an animal pranced down the 
lane, opened the gate and disappeared. Next morning Mr. Jack- 
son's own cow was missing. A long search began and she was at 
last found with large quantities of small shot imbedded in her 
skin. 

One day Mr. Jackson's brother John, a portly man, came upon 
a visit; his host hospitably offered him what was supposed to be 
a glass of whiskey; but when he drank it, it did not taste like 
whiskey at all. It was arnica. Would arnica poison a man if 
taken in such quantity? No one knew. His brother drove post- 
haste to the doctor to see if the dose was mortal and if so whether 
anything could be done. Hours passed and he did not return, 
while John writhed and groaned, expecting sudden dissolution. 
Near the close of the day the brother appeared and John en- 
quired what was to be his fate. ''Oh, the doctor said there was 
no danger and no need of doing anything, so I went about my 
business." 

"The devil you did!" exclaimed John in a fury, "and left me 
here suffering the torments of the damned." 

Mrs. Knott, the aged stepmother of Mrs. Jackson, who lived 
with them, was a kindly, unselfish soul whom everybody loved. 
She was a beautiful dancer, and Mr. Jackson was very fond of 
dancing an Irish jig with her. It was a joy to see them, the 
strong burly man and the little creature of more than eighty 
years whose feet still tripped like a fairy's with all the relish 
and enjoyment of youth. 

The very guests of this household were interesting and amus- 
ing. There was Jehiel Railsback, for instance. Jehiel was not 
distinguished for courage and instead of going to the front in 
the Civil War, he had appropriately joined the Home Guard. A 
story was told that on the occasion of Morgan's raid in Indiana 
and Ohio, the Home Guard was called together and the captain, 
like Pizarro, drew a line upon the ground and said, "All who 
are ready to go with me to meet the invader, step across the 



A FOX HUNT 39 

line," but no one stirred. He drew another line, "If the foe 
comes to Eaton (a town fifteen miles away) all those who will 
go with me to meet him there step across the line," Still no one 
stirred. He drew another line, "If he comes to the state boundary 
(four miles away) all who will go and meet him there step across 
the line." Still there was no answer, until Jehiel, stirred by 
patriotic zeal and awake at last to the need of doing something, 
cried out, "Make it a mile, Captain, and I'm with you." 

Another man who contributed largely to this local colour was 
a former Episcopal rector, a man of saintly life, universally be- 
loved by the members of his church and respected by the com- 
munity, but abnormally absent-minded. He was continually 
doing extraordinary things. He once conducted a funeral pro- 
cession, not to the cemetery but to the livery stable where he kept 
his horse, having forgotten, while he was driving, the mission 
upon which he was bent. On another occasion, having got his 
notices mixed, he announced from the chancel that "Elizabeth 
Starr had died and that her funeral would take place at four 
o'clock every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon during Lent." 

A FOX HUNT 

The average Hoosier rural community is very democratic. I 
had not been long in Indiana before I was introduced to a char- 
acteristic local institution, an Indiana fox hunt. This was not 
a "meet" in the English fashion, with horses and hounds. There 
was no leaping of fences and hedges in a wild chase, but some- 
thing far more plebeian. 

The day was appointed some time ahead ; posters were printed 
and set up at all the cross-roads and toll-gates in the neighbour- 
hood for miles around, and notices published in the local papers 
giving the time, place, and manner of conducting the hunt. 

A quarter section of land was selected where it was thought 
that foxes could be found and where there was an open field in 
the centre. Sometimes as many as five hundred or a thousand 
persons would come together. Those who took part in the hunt 
were distributed somewhat after the fashion of an army investing 
a city. They were organised into four "regiments" as nearly equal 



40 LIFE IN INDIANA 

as possible, one of which was to advance from each point of the 
compass. There were no uniforms, however, and the "army" was 
not at all military in appearance. A "commander-in-chief" was 
selected to conduct operations, and each of the advancing parties 
was commanded by a "colonel." These, with a few "staff officers" 
and "aides" to carry instructions to different parts of the field 
were the only men on horseback. The rest were on foot. Each 
man must come provided with one or more instruments for making 
a diabolical din. Drums, Indian whistles, "toot horns," tin pans, 
cymbals — all were admissible, provided they would make noise 
enough, and a small cannon was generally on hand to give the 
signal for starting. The men were "deployed in skirmish line" 
from twenty to one hundred feet apart, and to every dozen or 
fifteen men a "captain" was allotted to see that they advanced in 
regular order and that the spaces between them were as nearly 
equal as possible. 

When the cannon gave the signal, all started and advanced 
slowly in converging lines toward the centre of the section, mak- 
ing the greatest noise they could, screeching, yelling, whistling, 
pounding drums, and beating the bush. The foxes naturally re- 
treated toward the centre of the quarter section. The men thus 
came closer together as they advanced, and when they reached 
the open space agreed upon they formed a circle from which 
there was no chance of escape. Sometimes they would meet to 
find they had had their trouble for their pains and to laugh at 
each other over the disappointment. But generally there were 
three or four foxes in the space inside the ring. Then one was 
selected as the first to be caught and some stout young fellow 
volunteered to run him down. Round and round the ring they 
went, the fox in front, the man close behind. When the pursuer 
became tired, another took his place and then another until at 
last the fox was caught by the tail and his head dashed against 
the ground. 

Another fox was then caught in the same waj^, and after all 
were disposed of they were put up for sale at auction and struck 
off to the highest bidder, some local wit acting as auctioneer. 

The farmers brought their families and took lunch together in 
some neighbouring grove, and in this general reunion other im- 



DRAMATIC INTERESTS 41 

provised forms of amusement completed the entertaimnent of the 
day. 

THE FAMILY 

As the years went by I absorbed the Hoosier spirit more and 
more. True we did not spend all our time in Indiana. We 
travelled a great deal in Europe, where our daughters received a 
good part of their education. Since their marriages they have 
become widely separated, and they were never so closely bound 
as were their parents to Indiana. But the family home has still 
strong attractions for them. They are widely divergent in their 
views, especially in their political opinions, but the deep affection 
they had for each other in early life seems only to be strength- 
ened with the years, and our lively controversies over the things 
on which we differ have not in the least impaired it. 

DRAMATIC INTERESTS 

We were all very fond of acting. Caroline, my eldest 
daughter, was especially good in such parts as Ibsen's Nora and 
Shaw's Candida. Gwendolen, the youngest, studied and acted 
with Ben Greet, and also received dramatic instruction in Paris. 
She appeared, as a member of the Little Theatre Company of 
Chicago, in the role of Andromache in "The Trojan Women," 
in various cities of the country and was offered at the time of 
her marriage the leading parts in the Little Theatre, then just 
established, at St. Louis. 

I loved to act, most of all in Sheridan's plays, and if I can 
credit such reliable judgment as that of the patients of the East- 
ern Hospital for the Insane (just west of Richmond), I cannot 
have been wholly unsuccessful, for they declared that my Sir 
Anthony Absolute must have been the work of a professional! 
It was not long ago that I took part in Lady Gregory's "Work 
House Ward," one of the most screamingly funny farces ever 
written, and the last time I appeared I was rash enough to at- 
tempt Macbeth, with my daughter Gwendolen as Lady Macbeth, 
on the open-air stage at Earlham College, on the occasion of the 
celebration of the tercentenary of Shakespeare's death. 



42 UFE IN INDIANA 

AT THE INDIANA BAR 

The change from practice in a large city to that of a country- 
town was greater than I had imagined. And yet it had a certain 
charm which soon compensated for the loss of the excitement of 
the metropolis. My colleagues at the bar seemed at the outset 
rather crude. They dressed very plainly, and many of them 
were quite too careless in their personal appearance. Very few 
of them had had the advantages of a college education. They 
knew, naturally, nothing of foreign languages, except for the 
few words of barbarous Latin jargon (often mispronounced) 
which they had extracted from law books. Even the English 
tongue was mingled with variations which grated harshly upon 
the ears of a newcomer. When a fellow-member of the bar would 
say to me, *'It looks like the plaintiff will win his case," or of a 
man in jail, "He wants out," I could not at first so far separate 
the speaker from his phrase as to believe that he could really be 
a man of learning or ability. But after daily contact with such 
companions, after that competitive trial in court, which is the 
surest test of what a man is worth, I must say that I found 
the average of professional skill in this Indiana town quite as high 
as the average in New York City. And this was true not at the 
bar alone and not merely of technical attainments. The man of 
the West, though he shows less of the ornaments of learning, 
has a better perspective of life and the things that are useful in 
life than his Eastern brother. He understands more thoroughly 
his country's history and the nature of her institutions. He knows 
the important things in science and English literature, and, most 
important of all, he has shrewd sense, keen knowledge of human 
nature, the power of clear thinking and of fluent and forcible, 
if not elegant, speech. 

In contrast to the mass of attorneys elbowing each other for 
access to the bench in the chambers of the New York Supreme 
Court, the bar of Wayne County at that time seemed like a large 
family. We all met together in the court room in the morning 
at eight o'clock to make up the issues and dispose of other matters 
preliminary to trial. At nine the jury was called. The criminal 
trials came first and then the civil suits, and while the various 



AT THE INDIANA BAR 43 

lawyers waited for the calling of their respective cases, they would 
often spend the time chatting together in one of the adjoining 
rooms. Here arguments waxed warm and jokes and stories cir- 
culated, and here strong friendships were formed. A great waste 
of time it seemed to me at first, and so it was, in part ; yet it was 
schooling like this that trained such men as Lincoln to gauge so 
well the temper of the people and to meet so skilfully the emer- 
gencies of many a difficult situation. I enjoy recalling some of 
my brethren of the bar. There was my partner, Mr. Siddall, short 
of stature, clean shaven, portly, venerable, mopping his well- 
rounded bald head when the weather was hot with a many- 
coloured silk bandanna. He talked little, but every word counted. 
He never loaded his arguments with a mass of authorities; one 
or two cases right to the point were enough. Sometimes there was 
not a citation. But I have rarely known his equal in the power 
of convincing the court by well-ordered, luminous thought, ex- 
pressed in clear, simple words. It was he who often presided 
over our reunions in the court room or the library adjoining. He 
was a good listener to the tales and jests of the others, whose 
bon mots he rewarded with a benevolent smile. Yet he had a 
shrewd eye for the main chance and had acquired a comfortable 
competence by his profession. He was wise, not only in winning 
his clients' cases, but in presenting to them a bill proportioned 
to the good service he had rendered. Once when I suggested that 
the fee he proposed was too high, as we had had little to do, he 
answered: "But think of the responsibility!" 

Then there was Judge Perry, who had lived in the county for 
Upwards of seventy years, and who, although brought up in a 
pioneer community amid the roughest surroundings, bore the 
unmistakable lineaments of the old-fashioned gentleman. He had 
a slender form; a long neck, encircled by a high, black stock, 
finely cut features, soft grey hair, and a resolute mouth. His 
cheeks were sometimes inflamed by righteous anger, and on such 
occasions he would use language of the most forcible character, 
but it never degenerated into vulgarity. There was no member 
of the bar who ever suspected Judge Perry's absolute probity or 
sincerity. His regard for truth was so great that even his rhetoric 
had to be exact. Once when addressing a jury, he began, "Never 



44 LIFE IN INDIANA 

on God's green eartJi," then looking out of the window and seeing 
there was still snow upon the ground, he added, "or which shortly 
will be green, was a more unjustifiable offence committed." He 
had served two terms as Judge of the Common Pleas and died 
at last at a very ripe old age — nearly ninety — greatly honoured 
and loved by his associates. The tale was told of him that once 
when he bought a horse for which he was to give a note in 
payment, the seller asked for security. The Judge thereupon 
passed the note to the lawyer sitting next him, who subscribed 
his name and passed it to the next, and this was repeated until 
it was signed by all the attorneys in the county, whereupon the 
man to whom it was tendered declined absolutely to receive it, 
saying, "If all you lawyers are on that note, how am I ever to 
collect it?" 

A picturesque figure that rises before me as I write is that of 
General Tom Bennett. He had been an officer in the Civil 
War, was at one time in Congress, and was repeatedly elected 
Mayor of Richmond. He chiefly appears in my memory as the 
possessor of a lurid and most reprehensible vocabulary. After 
his death it was said that his wife once consulted a medium 
desiring a communication with his spirit and that he answered 
asking why she was such a damned fool as to try to talk with him 
in that way. The answer was so characteristic that many be- 
lieved the communication must have been genuine. 

The most "eloquent" man among us was Colonel Bickle. The 
Colonel seemed to be the creature of instinct rather than of 
reason. He once told me that when a case was presented to him 
his conclusion came like a flash and that no amount of thinking 
ever made it more clear to him. His logical processes as set 
forth in some of his judicial opinions (for the Colonel was at 
one time Judge of our Superior Court) were often quite incom- 
prehensible to others, and it was undoubtedly to such as he 
that the advice was once given, "Decide, but do not give your 
reasons, for although your decision may be sound your reasons 
never will be." As a lawyer he was great in one thing, in his 
impassioned appeals to the jury in cases which awakened sym- 
pathy. None could paint more vividly in a suit for criminal 
conversation the charms of virtue and the sanctity of home. His 



A SCRIMMAGE 45 

imagery was superb and his words "descending like snowflakes 
of the winter" enveloped the delighted imaginations of his hearers. 
John F. Kibbey, the judge of our circuit court, was quite dif- 
ferent. He was not fluent in speech; his charges to the jury, 
always given in writing, were concise to a fault, stating the law 
in very few words and with surprising accuracy. He was a 
man of the most unimpeachable integrity, diligent and prompt, but 
arbitrary in his treatment of the bar, which he disciplined as if 
he were a schoolmaster. He held the most extreme Spenserian 
theories in politics and sociology. Government had no right, 
he said, to tax men for any other purpose than the maintenance of 
justice. Public schools, post offices, tariffs, national currency 
were, however, iniquities which he cheerfully supported, voting 
the Republican ticket at every election. He always believed in 
woman's suffrage, he once told me, until he passed the threshold 
of the hall of a woman's suffrage convention, when he became 
disgusted with the "cause" until he was out in the street again. 
Indeed, he always took the opposite side on everything, and those 
at the bar who were shrewdest used to find that the best way to 
get a decision from him was to say as little as possible and let 
him argue the case with the opposite counsel. He had a way 
(not to be imitated by every judge) of talking to the lawyers 
about their cases out of court, but it never gave those of us who 
knew him the least anxiety to find the judge talking with the 
lawyer on the other side, for we well knew that the harder the 
man argued, trying to convince him, the less likely he was to 
succeed. 

A SCRIMMAGE 

At one time I was connected with a closely contested case in 
which Thomas J. Study was associated with Judge Peele on the 
other side. We had been crowding them pretty closely, and 
they were becoming irritated. On one occasion I entered Judge 
Peele's office in order to give notice of the taking of some addi- 
tional depositions. Study was there and in a very bad humour. 
After I had served the papers and was about to leave, he assailed 
me with very opprobrious epithets, but as they had no reference 
to anything in particular I concluded to consider them mere 



46 LIFE IN INDIANA 

evidence of his disapproval, and I walked away without answer- 
ing. He followed me to the door, saying, "I want to know 
why you got the witnesses in this case to swear to such and such 
facts." This made me angry, I turned back on him, saying, 
"If you say that I got the witnesses in this or any other case to 
testify what was not true, you are an infernal liar." On a table 
close beside him was a notary's seal weighing several pounds. He 
started to reach for it. I knew that I must either run or seize 
him before he took it. I did not want to run, so I grabbed 
him. I got my right arm around his neck and he got his left 
arm around mine and we rolled over on the floor together. First 
I was on top, then he was, and then you couldn't tell which one 
was. Finally we got in a position side by side, each of us 
supporting himself on the floor by one hand. If I lifted my hand 
to hit him I would fall under him, and he would do the same 
if he tried to strike me; so it got to be somewhat like trench 
warfare — neither party could attack except at a great disadvan- 
tage, and the situation struck me as so irresistibly funny that I 
broke out laughing. The chairs had been scattered about the 
room in the melee, and Judge Peele and two or three others 
who were there now seized us by our legs and pulled us apart, 
whereupon I walked away. 

There was a peculiar aftermath. Study was arrested by the 
police for assault and battery. The trial was set before the 
Mayor, and I was subpoenaed as a witness. We had had our 
fight; I didn't feel the least resentment and I didn't want to 
testify against him. I had a demurrer to argue that after- 
noon before Judge Kibbey. So long as I kept my feet arguing 
that demurre-r I knew nobody could take me away on an attach- 
ment and compel me to appear before the Mayor. I told the 
opposing counsel of my predicament and that I expected to argue 
the case at length. He made no objection. It was a case which 
ordinarily would have taken fifteen minutes, but I kept at it for 
hours, citing all the cases on both sides and reading them at length 
and then starting out from a new point of view. I think Judge 
Kibbey knew what I was up to, but he said nothing and bore 
it patiently. Then I saw two policemen come into the court 
room. I knew they had a warrant for me, but they couldn't 



RAILROAD PRACTICE 47 

serve it while I was on my feet. I took a fresh start, kept it up 
most of the afternoon, and did not stop until I saw Study and his 
counsel coming into the room. Then I knew the trial was over 
and desisted. 

I heard afterwards what happened at the Mayor's court. 
Henry U. Johnson defended Study. Judge Peele was the first 
witness for the prosecution. He testified that "these two gentle- 
men had some words in his office and came together so quickly 
that no one could ever tell who struck the first blow." 

"I will ask you. Judge Peele," said Johnson, "if from what you 
saw it is not your judgment that each of these gentlemen was 
endeavouring to prevent the other from committing a breach 
of the peace?" 

"That was exactly it," said Judge Peele, and Study was 
acquitted. 

It is curious how a little scrap of this kind clears the air. Study 
and I remained fast friends from that time until the day of his 
death. He was sometimes rough in his behaviour, but I have 
found from personal experience that he had a very kind heart. 

RAILROAD PRACTICE 

While the railroad business in the firm of Siddall and Foulke 
constituted only a part of our general practice, it was in the 
main very agreeable and satisfactory. Our work was much the 
same as that of counsel at the English bar, the cases being briefed 
by claim agents and other experts while we had charge of the 
proceedings in court and of the various law questions which arose 
there. It had formerly been the policy of the railroad company 
to contest nearly all these cases, but the result was a series of 
large judgments for damages and much expensive litigation. This 
policy was changed about the time I entered the firm. The great 
majority of the cases were compromised. Indeed, we never fought 
a case unless we were reasonably sure of obtaining a judgment. 
In the long run a great deal of money was thus saved, and much 
of the violent prejudice which had existed in this farming com- 
munity against railroads was removed. Indeed, so successful was 
this plan that during the last three years of practice I never had 



48 UFE IN INDIANA 

occasion to appeal a single case to the Supreme Court. We either 
settled the controversy or got a verdict in the court below. The 
juries became remarkably liberal to the company after it was 
known that we tried to treat litigants fairly. At Newcastle, in 
the adjoining county of Henry, we were almost uniformly suc- 
cessful, while another railroad company in the same county was 
continually compelled to pay heavy damages. 

There is one delightful memory of the old days when Siddall 
and Foulke had their quiet rooms over the First National Bank. 
It was the custom of the firm on Saturday afternoons when the 
week's business had been disposed of, to lock the doors of the 
office, take out a bottle of Werk's Dry Catawba and, under its 
mellowing influence, sometimes with an invited guest but more 
frequently alone, to indulge in a general philosophic review of the 
past week's experiences and of the world in general. 

Before many years, however, Mr. Siddall, whose health was 
beginning to fail, decided to retire from practice. I thereupon 
formed a partnership with John L. Rupe, which lasted until 
1885 under the firm name of Foulke and Rupe. In both these 
associations there was at all times the utmost harmony between 
the members of the firm. 

While I was in this later partnership I was elected to the 
State Senate, where I served four years, and during this period 
Mr. Rupe was elected mayor of Richmond. Neither of these 
positions, however, interfered very seriously with our law practice. 
In our respective campaigns each of us gave the other every 
possible support. Indeed, my election to the Senate was mainly 
due to Mr. Rupe, as I had been taken ill during the canvass. He 
managed my interests better than I could have done myself. 

PERSONAL ASSOCIATIONS 

I was also quite intimate with Charles H. Burchenal, the most 
learned lawyer at our bar and a very lovable and genial man to 
those who knew him well. I was opposed to him in many cases. 
One of these was Horney vs. Patterson, a suit for partnership 
accounting involving a vast amount of detail. The Hon. Silas 
Colgrove, a judge from the neighbouring town of Winchester, 



PERSONAL ASSOCIATIONS 49 

had been called in to try the case. It dragged its weary length 
through weeks and months. The hot days of summer were 
approaching, we were pretty well worn out, and finally, when 
Judge Colgrove took to his bed, we concluded to postpone the 
case until the following fall. Meanwhile Burchenal and I deter- 
mined to spend the summer together in Europe, where we had 
a beautiful time. On our return we took up "Horney vs. Pat- 
terson" again, contesting every point with pertinacity for a 
month or two longer. The case threatened to become another 
Jarndyce and Jarndyce, where the costs and fees ate up the 
entire amount in the controversy, but we finally agreed upon a 
compromise which prevented the total loss of everything at issue. 
We did not wish to exemplify too literally Lord Brougham's defi- 
nition of the advocate, "A learned gentleman who rescues your 
property from the hands of your adversary and keeps it him- 
self." 

Burchenal and I were together a great deal in Richmond. 
Every day or two after our trials in court we would ride out 
into the country. Burchenal rode a pony named Billy, an obsti- 
nate little beast who could run like the wind, but did not 
always run the way his rider wished. Once on one of the by- 
roads south of Richmond we crossed a mill race on a ramshackle 
wooden bridge, the planks of which extended beyond the beams 
underneath. Billy insisted on going to the extreme edge of the 
planks, which began to tilt and frightened the little beast till he 
plunged madly into the water. It was a comical sight to see 
pony and rider swimming side by side for the shore. When 
Burchenal mounted again, his stovepipe hat was more than usu- 
ally glossy, and his dripping raiment left its marks upon the 
road. The pony bounded away under the whip, a fresh stroke 
at every bound, while I followed, trying to overtake my com- 
panion, but I was so convulsed with laughter that for a mile or 
two I failed. At last I caught up and told him how funny it 
all was, to which he answered drily that "he had not been in a 
position to enjoy it." 

In addition to our own bar, lawyers from other parts of the 
state took part in our litigations. Among these was Benjamin 
Harrison, who, after he had retired from the Presidency, appeared 



50 LIFE IN INDIANA 

as counsel of the contestant in an important will case. This was 
some years after I had withdrawn from practice. The trial was 
protracted to a great length. It began early in January, 1895, 
and continued until May. 

While the trial was going on I left home, travelled for two 
or three months in Cuba, Yucatan and Mexico, and returned 
to find it still dragging its slow length along. 

The hotels in Richmond were very poor; a number of us 
therefore invited General Harrison and Mr. Winter, the asso- 
ciate counsel, to dinner once a week during the trial. His regu- 
lar evening at our house was Friday, and I recall a remark he 
made on one of these occasions shortly before his argument: "The 
people are expecting that after this long trial we are going to 
make brilliant arguments. You might as well expect a horse to 
prance and show his paces after he has been dragging a gun 
carriage to the top of Pike's Peak." 

Early in May he made the concluding argument for the con- 
testants. His speech occupied the whole of one day. The court 
room was densely packed, many being unable to obtain admis- 
sion. He spoke at the outset of the impossibility of bringing 
in review the entire mass of testimony, the hearing of which had 
covered a period of more than four months. He would confine 
himself, he said, to a consideration of the main points, the few 
bold headlands that projected from the great line of testimony. 
Then he considered one after another the most vital facts show- 
ing that the testator had not the capacity to make a will. 

The concluding passages of his address were very eloquent, 
but they were delivered to the jury in a low tone of voice and 
were not heard by the great mass of those who thronged the court 
room. I have always considered this the finest jury address to 
which I ever listened, and I have heard the speeches in a good 
many celebrated cases. It was not so much a passionate appeal 
as a convincing, logical demonstration of the highest kind. He 
won his case. The jury decided that the will was invalid. 

General Harrison has been criticised as cold and unsympa- 
thetic, but he was powerful, if not passionate, in argument. He 
showed great tact in the management of this case and in his 
colloquies with counsel upon the other side. When one of these 



REFLECTIONS 51 

criticised the fact that an ex-president had been brought into the 
trial for the purpose of impressing the jury, his reply was: "There 
is no ex-president here, but simply a member of the Indiana bar 
who intends to treat his associates with courtesy and respect and 
to exact the same treatment from them." 



RETIREMENT FROM PRACTICE 

In 1885, shortly after my second session in the Indiana Senate, 
I had so many personal interests that required attention that I 
determined to withdraw from general practice. The firm of 
Foulke and Rupe was thereupon dissolved, and Mr, Burchenal 
entered into partnership with Mr. Rupe in my place. 



REFLECTIONS 

No man ever enjoyed the practice of law more than I did, 
especially in connection with jury trials. I never found any- 
thing more interesting than the marshalling of evidence, the 
search for decisions in point, the examination and cross-examina- 
tion of witnesses, the laying of plans to circumvent the adver- 
sary, and, best of all, the preparation and delivery of the final 
appeal to the "twelve good men and true." 

To talk to a jury where there was a fair chance to win was 
always the keenest of pleasures. For many years I used to be 
a little nervous just before rising to speak, but at last this passed 
away, and it was all unalloyed delight. The problem was not 
merely to set forth the law and the evidence in orderly sequence, 
but also to awaken those impulses of human nature which often 
play so important a part in securing verdicts. 

Sometimes the court used to limit our speeches to a certain 
number of minutes or hours — sometimes we were given a free 
hand. I always liked best to be limited, for although it might 
cripple the argument, it generally embarrassed the lawyer on the 
other side a good deal more. I could talk faster and get more 
words and possibly ideas into a given number of minutes than any 
other man at the Richmond bar, except Henry U. Johnson. These 
things are always comparative. Better omit half your argument if 



52 LIFE IN INDIANA 

your adversary has to leave out three-fourths of his. Better go 
into a trial with half your witnesses away, if you have enough 
to make out your case, provided the other side must suffer a still 
greater loss. It is like a battle; you should strike if only half 
prepared rather than wait till the enemy receives still greater 
reinforcements. 

For the practice of this profession there is one kind of knowl- 
edge almost as important as the knowledge of the statutes and 
decisions. This is a knowledge of men, of the motives which 
govern them and their probable conduct in a given emergency. 
It cannot be learned from any printed page. Shakespeare may 
lay bare the hidden mainsprings of human action, Tolstoi may 
dissect character until we are astonished and shocked at the 
faithfulness of the portrait, but it is a certain native intuition 
combined with practical experience which gives us our knowledge 
of men. I have known lawyers of talent who have lost their 
cases from this inability to understand the feelings and motives 
of others. 

An advocate perhaps prides himself upon his skill in cross- 
examination. He can throw the witness into confusion, he can 
extract contradictions and lay bare inconsistencies; yet some- 
times this very power is fatal to his cause. It is one of the best 
traits of human nature that it takes the part of the helpless and 
unfortunate, and whenever the skill of the lawyer goes beyond 
what the jury believes to be fair, his triumph as a cross-examiner 
may lead to a verdict for the other side. To browbeat a woman 
upon the witness stand is the most fatal of all mistakes. 

The tendency to cross-examine too much is, I think, a blunder 
more common than any other. Many lawyers ask questions in 
regard to everything they can think of and often with little regard 
to the probable answers. In the neighbouring county of Henry 
they used to say of one of their number, "All you need do is to 
ask a witness his name, age and residence, then turn him over 
to Grose for cross-examination and your case will be proved." 

A lawyer should study his jury carefully. He must neither 
underrate nor overrate their intelligence. He can nearly always 
count upon their honesty. The average man, where he has no 
particular interest or prejudice of his own, will try to do what 



REFLECTIONS 53 

he thinks is right. A purely technical appeal to a jury against 
natural justice will rarely win. An appeal to prejudice is some- 
times more successful. Verdicts have often been determined by 
matters quite outside the domain of legal evidence. One jury- 
man who had stood out long against his eleven obstinate com- 
panions gave as a reason that he never would find in favour of 
a man who carried a gold-headed cane! 

In most cases where a mistake is made in a verdict it is 
caused by sympathy or by attempts to do right in the face of 
the law. Where usury involves the loss of principal and 
interest, juries are slow to find that the contract has been 
usurious. In suits for damages resulting from the proved care- 
lessness of the defendant it is hard to get a jury to find that 
the negligence of the plaintiff contributed to the injury so as to 
bar his recovery. Where there has been mutual fault they will 
try to divide the damages, and every fact will be strained in 
favour of the unfortunate. 

This brings me to another point. In the argument of a case 
is it better to present in detail and argue elaborately every 
question, or is it better to seize the strong points of the con- 
troversy and urge these alone? Rufus Choate used to say that 
he had tried juries so often and had found them so uncertain 
that he would leave nothing unargued. Such men as Webster 
and Erskine, on the other hand, would take the strong points 
only, believing that to divert the mind of the jury to less impor- 
tant subjects tended to confuse and embarrass them in regard to 
the leading issues. Which is the better course? I should say 
that this depends largely upon what you know of your case and 
what you know of your jury. If you are satisfied that you can 
make the jury see what are the vital questions, it is wiser to 
throw away immaterial or subordinate things which can only 
darken counsel. But otherwise you cannot safely neglect details. 
The best lawyer will never be over-confident of success and 
will never despair amid reverses. There are some antagonists 
who are not dangerous until after they have suffered a defeat. 
It is better to be like these than like him who enters the battle 
with perfect confidence and after the first reverse lays down his 
arms. The time to end a case is after you have won something, 



54 LIFE IN INDIANA 

not when you have lost. The most dangerous of all antagonists 
is the one who does not know when he is beaten. 

Such are the impressions which some fifteen years of active 
practice have left with me. But the concluding question re- 
mains. Is it well to advise a young man to follow this profes- 
sion? It certainly is an inspiring career. It not only gives great 
prizes of its own, but it leads naturally into other avenues of pub- 
lic life. If the question be one of mere personal advantage, the 
reasons for it will often be conclusive. But from the point of 
view of human welfare, there are other careers which are more 
useful. There will always be lawyers enough for the needs of 
justice. The law is a necessary conservative power, but the great- 
est advances of humanity have been made in other fields — in 
medicine, in engineering, in scientific and industrial effort. The 
most learned lawyer at our bar once said to me: "After our days 
are over how little we shall have to show for them! Of what 
importance to the world is it whether Smith or Jones wins this 
case or that? We are not like inventors or architects or artists 
or writers, who leave permanent memorials behind them. All we 
have done is just to help hold things together." Legislation in- 
deed may be constructive and, once in a century, some great 
jurist like Chief Justice Marshall may give vitality to our insti- 
tutions by his interpretations of the fundamental law, yet in the 
ordinary growth of jurisprudence there is often as much harm as 
good. Complexities, delays, and the frequent miscarriage of 
justice have crept in with the very effort to secure greater cer- 
tainty and more perfect equity. And it would be hard to find 
(unless it be in theology) any profession that now lags so far 
behind the general advance in science and knowledge as the pro- 
fession of the law. 



CHAPTER III 

INDIANA ASSOCIATIONS, JULIAN, RILEY, ETC. 

When from tormenting cares I steal away 

To haunt the quiet river-side ; to hear 
The murmur of the stream ; to note the play 

Of quivering foliage mirrored sharp and clear 
Upon its tranquil breast ; to see the boys 

Plunge in the swimming hole ; to thread the lanes 
Close thicketed, and share the wanton joys 

Of forest birds; to watch the heavy wains 
Creaking and toiling through the shallow ford ; 

To mark the cricket's chirp and drone of bee, 
Or sit a welcome guest at the farmer's board, 

Hearing quaint talk and rude philosophy ; 
Riley, thy music comes, a soft refrain, 
And blends with all in one harmonious strain. 

— To James Whitconih Riley. 
See infra, p. 63. 

THE TUESDAY CLUB 

Indiana soil, as we have already seen, has been peculiarly 
fertile for the growth of all sorts of literary, dramatic and 
art associations. There was in Richmond a literary society 
known as the Tuesday Club which lived more than a score 
of years. It was organised on the same plan as that of the 
Liberal Club in New York. A paper was read or an address 
delivered by a member or by a guest. Then the subject was 
thrown open to discussion, and the speaker had the right to close 
the debate. Some of these papers were of marked ability. Albert 
J. Beveridge, David Starr Jordan, Felix Adler, Richard H. Dana, 
Lucius B. Swift, George W. Julian and others delivered addresses 
or took part in the debates, which were always lively and enter- 
taining, though the views expressed were not so radical as those 
of the members of the Liberal Club. 

55 



S6 INDIANA ASSOCIATIONS, JULIAN, RILEY, ETC. 

GEORGE W. JULIAN 

One of our most animated discussions was in the winter of 
1895-96, when George W. Julian, an early abolitionist and at one 
time a member of Congress from our district (then known as "the 
old burnt district"), read a paper on Charles Sumner. He and 
Sumner had been close friends, and he spoke bitterly of Sumner's 
deposition from the chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign 
Relations during Grant's administration. He especially referred 
to the indignity offered to Sumner by depriving him of a place 
on any leading committee and giving him a merely subordinate 
position on one which was wholly unimportant. I took issue with 
Mr. Julian upon this subject, recalling Mr. Sumner's impossible 
position in respect to England, he having insisted that the British 
empire ought to be excluded entirely from the American con- 
tinent.^ 

I showed the necessity of having the administration and the 
Senate in accord upon our foreign policy, and I also reminded 
Mr. Julian that Sumner had been offered and had declined the 
chairmanship of the Committee on Elections, which afterwards 
became, under the direction of our war governor, Oliver P. Mor- 

1 Mr. Julian expressed his doubt as to the authenticity of the memo- 
randum in which Sumner had insisted on this exclusion. I accordingly- 
enquired as to this of J. C. Bancroft Davis, the most prominent par- 
ticipant in the negotiations regarding the Alabama claims and received 
from him the following reply: 

Washington, D. C, Feb. 20, 1896. 
William Dudley Foulke, Esq. 
Dear Sir: — 

Your letter of the 17th is received and I hasten to answer your 
enquiries. 

On the 64th, 65th and 66th pages of "Mr. Fish and the Alabama 
Claims" — the sketch to which you refer — I say : "Matters were now 
sufficiently advanced to warrant the Secretary (Mr. Fish) in consulting 
the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and on 
the 15th of January he went to Mr. Sumner's house by appointment. 
The Senator gave no answer on that day, but on the 17th of January 
sent the following memorandum in writing to Mr. Fish : 

First. The idea of Sir John Rose is that all questions and causes 
of irritation between England and the United States should be re- 



GEORGE W. JULIAN 57 

ton, the leading committee in the Senate. We had quite a lively 
argument upon the question. 

On the following morning (Mr. Julian was my guest at the 
time) we received the startling news of President Cleveland's 
message on the Venezuela question, amounting almost to a chal- 
lenge of war to the British Empire, which had declined to arbi- 
trate the matter. The message made a deep impression upon us. 
Mr. Julian, then a very old man, was lying upon a couch; we 
discussed point by point the various questions involved. The 
danger of war appeared extremely grave. We had declared 
our policy and must abide by it. The Monroe Doctrine, necessary 
to our national security, forbade the forcible acquisition of new 
territory in America by a European power. There was strong 
reason to believe that England was forcibly encroaching upon 
the territory of Venezuela. We were bound to see that this was 
not done. If England persisted that meant war, and it would be 
very difficult for her to recede. We might well ask ourselves 
whether this question of a boundary in South America was worth 
the lives and treasure such a war would cost. Indeed, except for 
the principle involved, it would have no such value, but we were 

moved absolutely and for ever that we may be at peace really and 
good neighbours, and to this end all points of differences should be 
considered together. Nothing could be better than this initial idea. 
It should be the starting point. 

Second. The greatest trouble, if not peril, being a constant source 
of anxiety and disturbance, is from Fenianism, which is excited by the 
proximity of the British flag in Canada. Therefore the withdmzval of 
the British flag can not be abandoned as a condition or preliminary of 
such a settlement as is now proposed. To make the settlement com- 
plete, the zinthdrawal should be from this hemisphere, including prov- 
inces and islands. 

Third. No proposition for a joint commission can be accepted unless 
the terms of submission are such as to leave no reasonable doubt of 
a favourable result. There must not be another failure. 

Fourth. A discrimination in favour of claims arising from the 
depredations of any particular ship will dishonour the claims arising 
from the depredations of other ships, which the American Govern- 
ment can not afford to do ; nor should the English Government expect 
it, if they would sincerely remove all occasions of difference. 

C. S." 



S8 INDIANA ASSOCIATIONS, JULIAN, RILEY, ETC. 

the children of ancestors who had maintained a desolating strug- 
gle for eight years with the same adversary rather than submit 
to a vicious principle. If we could be sure of our constancy 
throughout this struggle, the final result would not be doubtful. 
Mr. Julian and I came to the conclusion that the principle for 
which Mr. Cleveland contended was right and that he was en- 
titled to the unquestioning support of the American people. 
The outcome was indeed a happy one. The British Govern- 

You say that the authenticity of this memorandum is now questioned, 
but not by yourself. In reply I freely make the following statement 
as to my own sources of knowledge : 

On the 15th day of January, 1871, it came to my knowledge that 
Mr. Fish had gone to Mr. Sumner's house. I saw him on his return 
and heard from his lips what had taken place there. I knew on the 
17th that Mr. Fish had received the memorandum. I saw that paper 
soon after its receipt, and recognised it as being in the handwriting 
of Mr. Sumner, with which I was familiar. All the statements which 
I made on this subject m the sketch called "Mr. Fish and the Alabama 
Claims" were made from personal knowledge, including those concern- 
ing the text of the memorandum, its date, and the initials of Mr. 
Sumner. 

You also ask whether the original of the memorandum is in exist- 
ence and where it is to be found. 

In reply I beg to say that the original of Mr. Sumner's memoran- 
dum is, I presume, among the many and valuable papers of Mr. Fish 
in the hands of his literary executors. I last saw it at his country 
home, at Garrison's, in the summer of 1893, during his lifetime. I was 
then engaged in the preparation of "Mr. Fish and the Alabama Claims," 
which appeared in the autumn of that year. 

The memorandum referred to was first made public in a letter from 
me which appeared in the New York Herald, January 4, 1878. That 
letter was written with the knowledge and permission of Mr. Fish. 
He not only read it carefully before publication, but he had it re- 
printed in pamphlet form, circulated the reprint among his friends, and 
deposited it in many public libraries. He would not have done this 
had he entertained any doubt of its authenticity. The active partici- 
pation of so honourable, so upright and so truthful a man in making 
public and in circulating the memorandum is convincing proof that he 
regarded it as authentic and that it was so. 

On Mr. Sumner's side we have equally convincing proof that, had 
he been living, he would not have questioned the accuracy and truth- 
fulness of the memorandum, as it is printed in the sketch. On page 464 
of Volume 4 of his "Memoirs and Letters," edited by his friend, Mr. 



GEORGE W. JULIAN 59 

ment finally consented to arbitrate. The results of the arbitra- 
tion were in the main satisfactory to England, and I remember 
that some years afterwards General Harrison, who had represented 
America in the proceedings, expressed to me much dissatisfaction 
at the conduct of the arbitrators who, as it seemed to him, were 
more anxious to compromise a difficult question in which a great 
power was involved than to do substantial justice between the 
parties. 

Pierce, appears an extract from a letter from him to Mr. George 
Bemis, dated January 18, 1871 (the day after the date of the memo- 
randum), in which he says: Sir John Rose is here with proposals, or 
rather to sound our Government. The English pray for settlement as 
never before. Mr. Fish has asked my judgment; I have sent him a 
memorandum in which I have said : "A discrimination in favour of 
claims arising from the depredations of any particular ship will dis- 
honour the claims arising from the depredations of other ships, which 
the American Government can not afford to do ; nor should the English 
Government expect it, if they would sincerely remove all occasions of 
difference." 

Thus it is established, on the authority of Mr. Sumner, that before 
January 18, 1871, he sent a memorandum to Mr. Fish at the latter's 
request and that clause four in that memorandum as printed by me 
formed a part of the memorandum so sent. The doubting Thomas, 
being thus deprived of all power of questioning those two facts, is 
reduced to denying that clauses one, two and three were in the paper 
so sent to Mr. Fish. 

On this point, without considering the evidence of witnesses who 
saw the original containing these clauses and who recognised all as 
in Mr. Sumner's handwriting, I content myself with referring to 
evidence which Mr. Sumner's warmest friends can not question. 

This memorandum, as I have already said, was first made public 
on the 4th day of January, 1878. In the following summer Mr. Sum- 
ner's biographer, Mr. Pierce, published an able and somewhat caustic 
article in the North American Review, contesting every position that 
I had taken, except the one that the memorandum with four clauses 
which I described had been sent by Mr. Sumner to Mr. Fish on the 
17th of January. As to that he said (and when he said it he was, and 
for nearly five years had been, in possession of all of Mr. Sumner's 
confidential papers) : "Mr. Sumner appears to have thought the prox- 
imity to us of the British possessions a cause of irritation and dis- 
turbance, by furnishing a basis of operations for Fenians, and in order 
to make the settlement complete and prevent all controversy in the 
future he proposed the peaceful and voluntary withdrawal of the 



6o INDIANA ASSOCIATIONS, JULIAN, RILEY, ETC. 

MUGWUMPS 

In 1896 I read a paper before the Tuesday Club which attracted 
much hostile criticism. The people of Richmond had been warm 
supporters of President Harrison, and those who had flinched 
in their devotion to him were anathema among a considerable por- 
tion of our population. I had opposed him in the preceding 
Presidential campaign. Walking one day past St. Paul's Episco- 
pal Church, which was undergoing repairs, I heard a voice from 
the top of the spire crying out in tones of great contempt, ''What's 
the matter with Benny, you damned old mugAvump?" I looked 
up to see whence the voice proceeded, and observed a man dodging 
behind the spire. This reproach coming from the very pinnacle 
of the house of God seemed a suitable text for a dissertation on 
"Mugwumps," which I accordingly prepared for the Club, show- 
ing the necessity of independence in politics if we were to have 
any real consideration of principles or persons in any election. 
The two leading parties could not be relied on to advocate the 
best measures or nominate the best men if they were sure in 
advance of full support if they advocated bad principles and 



British flag from the continent. . . . That he laid no greater stress upon 
this part of his memorandum appears clearly enough from a letter 
he wrote the day after to George Bemis, in which, mentioning the fact 
of his memorandum, he refers to the clause in it concerning the depre- 
dations of the several cruisers but without any reference to the clause 
respecting Canada." 

Fifteen years later, as I have already stated, this letter to Mr. Bemis 
appeared in Volume 4 of "Sumner's Memoirs." Mr. Pierce still made 
no question as to the genuineness of the memorandum and of each 
of its four clauses. We are therefore justified in regarding this letter 
to Mr. Bemis as strong confirmatory proof, on the part of Mr. Sumner 
and his friends, of the authenticity of the memorandum, as published 
by me. 

I permit myself to add, in conclusion, that you are at liberty to 
make any use of this letter which, in your judgment, the interests of 
truth and justice may require. 

I am, dear sir, 

Very truly j'ours, 

J. C. Bancroft Davis. 



MUGWUMPS 6i 

nominated bad men. Party government was most beneficial 
if there were mugwumps to repudiate it when it failed to do its 
duty. If reform within the party accomplished its work it would 
also keep within the party those who were devoted to reform; 
but if it failed, then reform from without the party and by the 
defeat of the party was the last remaining remedy and one which 
the mugwump did not intend to relinquish. I also insisted that 
a mugwump, by adhering to principles rather than party organi- 
sation, might be even less open to the charge of vacillation than 
the straight party man. 

While there was some support of these doctrines, the dissent 
was quite pronounced. I remember that among the guests that 
evening was Gen. O. O. Howard, who evidently did not approve 
at all, for, being called upon for some remarks upon the paper, 
he observed in the politest manner possible that although he was 
himself a warm Republican, he would a great deal rather be a 
Democrat than not belong to any party at all. 

It was in October of the following year that I was invited 
to address the National Conference of Unitarian Churches at Sara- 
toga on "The Citizen and the Republic." Senator Hoar pre- 
sided. I gave utterance to some sentiments similar to those of the 
Tuesday Club paper and was conscious while speaking that the 
good old gentleman was turning his revolving chair first to one 
side and then to the other in considerable agitation. As he was 
the presiding officer he felt he had no right to reply, but he after- 
wards remarked that he would have given a hundred dollars for 
a chance to answer such arguments; that these Mugwumps were 
willing to imperil the rights of a whole race on account of mat- 
ters which were comparatively trifling. Perhaps he was the more 
annoyed because the audience was warmly with me in my ad- 
vocacy of political independence. 

Of course all such advocacy should have its limitations. Im- 
portant political work can only be done by the co-operation of 
those who think alike, and this implies party government. Every 
member of a party ought to be prepared to yield much, if through 
its agency he can secure a greater good to his country. But if 
the balance be against what he considers best, he should not hesi- 
tate to abandon his party, acting independently or even allying 



62 INDIANA ASSOCIATIONS, JULIAN, RILEY, ETC. 

himself with its adversary. Party fealty with most of our people 
had become a fetich which needed to be discredited. 



INDIANAPOLIS LITERARY CLUB 

I became a member at quite an early day of the Indianapolis 
Literary Club. This had long been organised on much the same 
basis as the Tuesday Club, except that the discussions following 
the papers were more informal. A good many eminent men at 
one time and another have belonged to this club, among 
others Benjamin Harrison, Thomas A. Hendricks, Walter Q. 
Gresham, Rev. Myron W. Reed, Gov. Albert G. Porter, Rev. 
Oscar McCulloch, Addison C. Harris, Albert J. Beveridge, Charles 
W. Fairbanks, John L. Griffiths, Gen. Lew Wallace and James 
Whitcomb Riley. The Club used to be very particular as to the 
members elected, and blackballing was so frequent that Myron 
Reed once said that not a member then in the Club could get back 
if he had to be voted on by the rest of them. 

The papers were for the most part of high quality and the dis- 
cussions spicy. There was usually a good deal of fun at the 
annual dinners, but this was not always the case. There was one 
to which the ladies were invited where the speeches were so 
numerous and so long that I was called upon for some happy 
remarks at two o'clock in the morning, and this without a blessed 
thing to drink but water. 

The Club did some extraordinary things. I recall a certificate 
of good character, elegantly engrossed, which we furnished to 
Benjamin Harrison, then President-elect, on the eve of his de- 
parture to Washington. This testimonial, coming from the place 
where he worked last, undoubtedly entitled him to the confidence 
of the American people! 

WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS 

At quite an early period there was organised "The Western 
Association of Writers," which held meetings both at Indianapolis 
and elsewhere in Indiana. This society, however, seemed en- 
grossed, not so much in general discussions on literature, as in 
displaying the excellencies of the works of its own members. 



THE INDIANA SOCIETY OF CHICAGO 63 

We edified each other by the reading of poems, stories and other 
productions, many of which were considered tedious by those 
who did not themselves deliver them. I noticed too that while 
James Whitcomb Riley, Lew Wallace, and other well-known 
names were on the list of members, they did not often attend the 
meetings and the programmes were mainly filled with the pro- 
ductions of persons comparatively unknown. I still have a pro- 
gramme of the tenth annual meeting at Warsaw, Indiana, in 1895, 
where the performances lasted through five mortal days! 

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

On one occasion the association proposed to give Riley a com- 
plimentary dinner at the Dennison Hotel in Indianapolis. I was 
on the committee managing the affair and during the afternoon 
Riley asked me into his room. Things were in utter confusion, 
clothing on the floor, a valise on the bed, and everything at sixes 
and sevens. Riley looked at me in dismay and ejaculated, "It 
is always this way with me, a place for everything and not a 
damned thing in it." Riley was a prince of raconteurs; he always 
had an assortment of good stories, and nobody could tell them 
as he could. His accent and the expression of his countenance 
were inimitable. All who knew the man were very fond of him. 
When he visited the homes of his friends he attracted children 
to him like a magnet. He would take a child upon his lap and 
draw wonderful pictures and improvise stories of what some boy 
or dog or rabbit was doing, while the eyes of his little listener 
were wide open with wonder and delight. 

Riley's poetry, as well as his personality, had a very whole- 
some effect upon the people of the state. Indeed, the Hoosier's 
homely ways, the plain things of life and the kindly sympathy 
which he epitomised, spread their influence far beyond the boun- 
daries of the state and even of the nation. 



THE INDIANA SOCIETY OF CHICAGO 

An organisation which I have enjoyed immensely is the Indiana 
Society of Chicago. There were generally five or six hundred of 



64 INDIANA ASSOCIATIONS, JULIAN, RILEY, ETC. 

us seated at the tables in the ballroom of the Congress Hotel, and 
various were the "stunts" performed — there were humorous 
speeches by all sorts of people, and there were successful vaude- 
ville performances. In 19 19 a burlesque political convention was 
held at which many of the members were involuntary candidates 
for President; I was the poets' candidate and McCutcheon had a 
cartoon representing me in evening dress bestriding Pegasus, while 
America bristled with most appropriate exclamation and inter- 
rogation points.^ 



JEKYL ISLAND CLUB 

I was for a good many years a member of the Jekyl Island 
Club, which occupied one of the sea islands off the coast of 
Georgia. There were forests of pine and live oak, a broad, hard 
beach, a bicycle trail through the woods, and very attractive roads 
and forest paths for driving and riding. I had a number of 
friends among the members, and there were various interesting 
prominent men who came as visitors: Dr. Weir Mitchell, Thomas 
Bailey Aldrich, and others. President McKinley once spent a 
few days on the island, sitting (as Dooley described it) "under 
the coupon trees." 

1 used to play chess a good deal with Thomas Nelson Page, 
but I recall a remark he made which has discouraged me from 
giving much attention to the game since that time. He said, 
"I found that I could write a story with about the same effort 
that it took to play a half-dozen games, and writing the story 
was more worth while, so I do not play so much as I used to." 

Dr. Weir Mitchell was a rare companion. We used to go out 
canoeing and had long talks together. He was one of the most 
distinguished physicians of his time, especially in the treatment 
of nervous disorders, and many were the stories of his original and 
sometimes radical methods of treating his patients. One of them, 

2 On one of these occasions I spoke on "Indiana's Output" (see 
Appendix I), and a few years later I discussed the instructions to be 
given l)y the outgoing Vice-President, Mr. Fairbanks, to the incoming 
Vice-President, Air. Marshall, upon the duties as well as the vices 
appropriate to the office. 



JEKYL ISLAND CLUB 65 

a woman, had been bedridden for years and insisted upon her 
inability to move. He was satisfied that her disease was imag- 
inary and had a fire kindled under her bed. Her recovery was 
immediate. At this time (it was shortly after the publication of 
"Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker") he prided himself more upon his 
accomplishments in literature than in his profession, a judgment 
which the world will hardly ratify. I remember he had quite 
a strong feeling against the kind of education given at Bryn 
Mawr College (where my daughters had been students), believing 
that it did not properly provide for the domestic duties of a 
woman's life. He contrasted it with the Sorbonne, in which he 
said every girl was required to show, before she was admitted, 
that she understood thoroughly the things that were necessary 
to the proper conduct of a household by the mother of a 
family. 

Aldrich was an interesting man in conversation, but upon one 
subject he was devoid of a sense of humour. I once imprudently 
rallied him on certain peculiarities of Boston. Now if a man 
could not make fun of Boston, life would be lacking in one of 
its most wholesome sources of merriment. I had artlessly told 
him of an incident which happened at a dinner given in that 
city to the National Civil Service Reform League, when the 
speeches of welcome were so long and effusive that they cut out 
the addresses on the programme which were to be delivered by 
the invited guests. 

The facts were these. The president of the Massachusetts 
Association welcomed us in no stinted phrase. Then the Speaker 
of the Legislature consumed half an hour in telling us how much 
he admired us. Then the representative of the Bay State in Mr. 
Cleveland's cabinet, Mr. Richard S. Olney, told us how precious 
were our contributions to political and social welfare; then the 
head of Harvard University, Dr. Eliot, assured us that the 
success of our movement was written in the eternal laws of 
nature, and finally Pat Collins, then mayor of Boston, filled with a 
double inspiration, descanted at great length upon the tremen- 
dous obligation which the world owed to the guests of the 
evening. Mr. Oilman, president of the League, and Mr. Carl 
Schurz were the only gentlemen outside of Boston whose remarks 



66 INDIANA ASSOCIATIONS, JULIAN, RILEY, ETC. 

had deflected even for a moment this uninterrupted stream of 
welcome. Among the remaining guests of the evening, Mr. Bona- 
parte, INIr, Garfield, Commissioner Procter and I had been set 
down upon the printed programme for speeches. 

Now the Boston man knows many things, but two things he 
knows supremely well. The first is the time to go to bed, and 
the second is that when Boston has spoken, all has been said that 
is worth hearing. Boston had spoken, the welcome was complete, 
and bedtime v*ras at hand. So the audience began to crumble, 
leaving a few meagre remnants for Procter and Garfield, and 
none at all for Bonaparte and me, and we departed quite over- 
come by the heartiness of our welcome. 

It was soon clear, however, that such a story would not do at 
all in such a presence. Mr. Aldrich was himself Boston incar- 
nate and upon anything indicating a flaw in its perfections he 
was up in arms in its defence. He resented the anecdote and 
was never so cordial afterwards. I solaced myself with the 
thought, ''Blessed indeed is such a city to possess, among the most 
distinguished of her sons, one who will not permit even the lightest 
raillery to cast a blemish upon her infinite excellence." 

But the men who unconsciously furnished the greatest amuse- 
ment at Jekyl were the millionaires who ran the Club. These men 
when talking together really spoke as if they were also, run- 
ning the government of the United States — and perhaps they 
were, more than we knew! When President McKinley was 
there he was under their special protection, and when the 
war with Spain broke out some of them were impressed with the 
idea that the island might be attacked and they even hinted that 
the members might be held for ransom! An account was actually 
published in one of the newspapers of an imaginary piratical 
incursion for this purpose, whereupon a ridiculous demand was 
made on the government for military protection, and a cannon of 
the heaviest calibre was sent down and installed at the south 
end of the island. Here it stayed for some years buried more and 
more deeply in the sand. 

We had at Jekyl Island one form of sport not common in 
America — hunting the wild boar. There were a great many wild 
hogs in the island, a cross between the German boar and the 



EARLHAM COLLEGE 67 

southern razor-back, huge, swift beasts not easy to catch or kill. 
Parties were organised to hunt them by moonlight. We first drove 
to the part of the island they most frequented, and then, following 
the dogs, started off through the palmettoes after them. There 
were two kinds of dogs employed in the chase, first the ordinary 
hunting dog to follow the scent, and then "ketch dogs," as they 
were called, to hang on to the ears and legs of the victim and 
hold him until some one could come up with a long knife to 
finish him. But this work was generally done by the game- 
keeper, while the ladies and gentlemen who formed the party 
stood around and "assisted" with their eyes only. It was not a 
very edifying sport, although the scene was a weird one in the 
semi-tropical forest under a full moon. 

We once had an entertainment which was unique. The negroes 
on the island were accustomed each year to give us a "cake- 
walk," and a committee of three members was appointed on such 
occasions to award and distribute the prizes. But one day it 
was proposed that there should be a cake-walk on the beach in 
which we should do the cake-walking and a committee selected 
by the negroes should award the prizes. We all drove down to 
the south end of the island, and there, upon the broad, hard 
beach, we exhibited our graces in this fine art and submitted our 
merits to the judgment of three Ethiopians, one the deputy game- 
keeper, as black as the ace of spades, another, our hall boy, and 
the third a little fellow who distributed the papers on the island. 
A circle was formed by the carriages which had brought us to 
the spot. We arrayed ourselves in the most grotesque apparel 
we could find and marched around in pairs with all the serious- 
ness and grace we could command, while the three little blacka- 
moors, standing upon an improvised platform, solemnly deter- 
mined who did his part the best and quite perverted their respon- 
sible office, as I thought, by awarding me the booby prize! 

EARLHAM COLLEGE 

But to return to Richmond, Indiana. 

My connection with Earlham College has been rather close. 
One year I gave a series of lectures on municipal law to tlie more 



68 INDIANA ASSOCIATIONS, JULIAN, RILEY, ETC. 

advanced students, and I used to speak quite often on various 
subjects in the chapel. 

One evening the theme was Russian Literature. There was 
nothing humorous about it, but I noticed that every few minutes 
a ripple of laughter would spread over the audience and I won- 
dered what it was all about. It confused me. I thought there 
must be something grotesque about my personal appearance. 

I was standing alone upon a wide platform and finally noticed 
that the students were all looking a little to the left of me during 
one of these waves of suppressed merriment. I turned around 
and there, about ten feet away and a little behind me, was a 
small black-and-tan terrier, his head cocked slightly on one side, 
with one ear up and the other down, looking at me in a very 
interested way and wagging his little tail as if with entire appro- 
bation of what I had been saying. This was amusing enough, but 
what was to be done? I did not care to begin a dog chase on 
that platform, and there was no one who offered to help me out, 
so I congratulated the audience on the double character of the 
entertainment I had been able to furnish and endeavoured to 
forge ahead with my lecture. But it would not work. The atten- 
tion of the audience was permanently directed to the dog, and 
after pumping away to very little purpose for fifteen or twenty 
minutes more, I closed the lecture, which was a flat failure. As 
I left the hall, I remarked to a companion that the boys had got 
the best of me that time, that the joke was a good one and very 
successful. A student heard me and remarked, "I hope, Mr. 
Foulke, that you don't think we played any trick on you. The 
dog came in with you and we thought he was your dog, so we 
didn't like to take him away." 

I reflected as I drove home that those boys were much better 
behaved than I had been when I was in college. I should have 
rejoiced above all things at the opportunity to play such a prank 
and have it succeed so well. 

In 1906 the college conferred on me the honorary degree of 
Doctor of Laws, an honour that I greatly appreciated, as well as 
the gracious words with which it was bestowed by President 
Robert L. Kelly. But I like to recall the amusing way in which 
the movement to grant me this degree directly started. Cleveland, 



SWARTHMORE COLLEGE 69 

the young son of my friend, Professor C. K. Chase, had from 
the first insisted, for some reason of his own, upon calling me 
"Dokker Foulke" until one <^ay his father, declaring that if I 
was to be called "Doctor," I should possess the title, stated his 
intention of taking up the question with the college authorities. 
The degree was conferred upon me soon afterwards. 



SWARTHMORE COLLEGE 

In 1 89 1 1 was called to the presidency of Swarthmore, a college 
established by the Hicksite Friends in Pennsylvania. I had pre- 
pared to remove thither and had sent on my furniture and closed 
my house at Richmond, when the sudden death of my wife's 
brother, who was killed in a railway accident, left the family 
business interests, which were quite complicated, entirely with- 
out a caretaker. There was no alternative but to return. The 
students afterwards celebrated by an appropriate dramatic per- 
formance the sudden defection of a president who thus died 
"a-bornin." 



CHAPTER IV 

THE STATE SENAT 

Into what seething cauldron did we cast 

Our measures, wise and foolish, small and great ! 

How faint the hope they would emerge at last 
As wholesome rules to guide a sovereign state! 

No art nor craft the great world ever saw 

More lawless than the making of the law. 

THE CAMPAIGN 

In the spring of 1882 I resolved to seek the Republican nomi- 
nation for state senator. In Wayne County the candidates were 
not chosen by a delegate convention, but by an open primary at 
which any member of the party might present his name to the 
electors. I was successful and became the nominee of the party. 

The leading question at that time was whether a proposed 
amendment to the Indiana constitution prohibiting the sale of 
liquor — an amendment which had been passed by the preceding 
legislature — should also be passed by the incoming General As- 
sembly, so as to make possible its submission to the people. The 
Republican Party in its platform had declared that it was in 
favour of such submission without, however, expressing any 
opinion regarding the merits of the amendment itself. The Green- 
back Party was actively in favour of prohibition, and the Demo- 
cratic Party was opposed to it. I had the support of most of the 
temperance organisations in the county, which were primarily in- 
terested in seeing that the amendment was submitted and knew 
that this could only be done through the Republican Party. But 
the Greenback paper, the Weekly News, began a violent attack 
upon me. In its issue of May 20, 1882, the whole first page was 
devoted to a disquisition upon my various shortcomings, the head- 
lines being, "Foulke's Faults, Two Hundred Dollars' Worth of 
Choice Wine. How and Why His Nomination Was Secured," etc. 

70 



THE SESSION OF 1883 71 

The editor had heard of a few cases of wine I had ordered, had 
magnified it to the proper size to suit his requirements, and now 
expatiated at great length upon my wickedness. 

Week in and week out the Neivs harped upon this string as 
well as upon the fact that I was the attorney of a bank and of a 
railroad. Its opposition, however, was ineffectual. I obtained a 
majority of about eighteen hundred. The News then published a 
large cartoon, which it thus described: 

Foulke is represented standing with one foot on the Goddess of 
Liberty. On his head is the royal insignia of power which his party 
has just invested him with. In one hand he holds a glass of wine 
and in the other a stump of prohibition. Behind him stands the money 
power. In one pocket is the sign of his professional business as attor- 
ney of the railroads and banks. In another pocket are copies of the 
Palladium, Item and Telegram. These papers dance like puppets to 
the jingle of his "rocks." In another of Foulke's numerous pockets 
is a spirited endorsement by the Woman's Suffrage Association and 
the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Foulke partly owes his 
election to the untiring efforts of the W.C.T.U. in his behalf. The 
Goddess of Liberty holds in one hand Truth and Justice ... in the 
other hand is the Weekly News, the only newspaper in Wayne County 
that has told the people the truth. 

But in spite of truth, justice, the Goddess of Liberty, and the 
Weekly News, I had been elected to the Senate for four years, a 
term which would include the two biennial sessions beginning in 
January, 1883 ^nd 1885, respectively. 



THE SESSION OF 1 883 

There was nothing very remarkable about either of these ses- 
sions, but perhaps for that very reason they are the more typical 
of the legislation of that period. There was a good deal of 
small politics in the General Assembly, and in 1883 there was a 
group of six or eight men in our Senate of fifty members whom 
I believed to be purchasable. Albert G. Porter, a Republican, 
was governor of the state, and Thomas Hanna, also a Republican, 
was Lieutenant-Governor and presided over the Senate. In that 
body there were twenty-eight Democrats and twenty-two Republi- 



72 THE STATE SENATE 

cans. The leader of the Democrats was Jason B. Brown, from 
Jackson County, otherwise known as "Bazoo Brown," a rough and 
unscrupulous, but an able and singularly eloquent man. Another 
prominent member on the Democratic side was Rufus Magee of 
Logansport, v;ho had the independence to oppose his own party 
on several important matters and with whom I formed a close 
and enduring friendship in spite of our many "brushes" on the 
floor of the Senate. The leader of the Republican minority was 
Jesse J. Spann of Rushville, who used to insist in some of our 
caucuses that it was our highest duty as Republicans to vote for 
every bad measure and thus make the record of the Legislature 
infamous so as to insure the overthrow of the Democrats at the 
next election! But such efforts would have been quite superflu- 
ous. The Democratic majority made a most unenviable record 
without our assistance. 

I was pretty green in politics, but learned a good deal as time 
went on, not only from my own experience but from some of my 
good friends who gave me the results of theirs. For instance, one 
day as I was returning on the train from Indianapolis, one of 
these who had served in the Legislature before gave me some 
fatherly counsel. He warned me against "those temperance peo- 
ple." "They will howl and howl and howl," he said, "but when 
it comes to the election, there isn't a damned vote. But you just 
tie up with some reliable saloon-keeper. He will bring the boys 
in squads to the polls." Unhappily I could not profit by this 
advice, since I never ran for office afterwards. 

We really had a great deal of fun in that Legislature, though 
our career was not fruitful in good laws. 

I introduced a bill giving to married women all the rights 
of single women, but it came to an early death. I introduced a 
bill to provide for the registration of voters, as expressly com- 
manded by the Constitution, but was told by "Bazoo" Brown, 
"I don't believe our fellows care much about a registry law," 
and nothing came of it. I offered a concurrent resolution urging 
Congress to support a woman suffrage amendment to the Fed- 
eral Constitution, but no such foolishness could be allowed. I 
introduced a bill providing that convicts might shorten their terms 
of imprisonment by good conduct, and a bill authorising county 



THE SESSION OF 18S3 73 

commissioners to make the o^vners of buildings in which liquor 
was sold responsible for damages. Indeed, I proposed a variety of 
measures, nearly all of which have since been enacted and now 
seem commonplace enough, but there was hardly one which was 
not then stifled in committee or voted down in open session. 

Yet there was one matter of local interest to Wayne County 
which turned out well. In 1883 Indiana had only a single hos- 
pital for the insane, which was situated in Indianapolis. It was 
greatly overcrowded, and more than sixteen hundred of these 
unhappy creatures were unprovided for, except in county poor- 
houses and jails, where they were kept, sometimes without cloth- 
ing, frequently confined in pens and cells, occasionally loaded 
with chains and balls or fed through iron gratings or v/earing 
handcuffs or sleeping on straw. There was a demand for addi- 
tional asylums; a strong lobby had come from Evansville, urging 
that one should be constructed there, and a bill had been intro- 
duced for the purpose. Naturally there were other cities that 
desired to be favoured in a like manner. The time seemed propi- 
tious to urge the claims of my own county, so I joined forces with 
my friend, Senator Magee, and other aspirants in an effort to 
secure two additional institutions with the hope that Richmond 
might be included. I suggested to my constituents that a gift 
of money or land might not be misplaced, and they accordingly 
offered twenty-five thousand dollars to buy the necessary site. I 
proposed to the Senate that a commission be appointed to go 
over the state and ascertain at what places the best facilities 
for such an asylum could be found and where the best terms 
could be obtained from the local communities. This was done, 
and Richmond was chosen for one of three new institutions. It 
must be admitted that this looks like ''pork-barrel" legislation, 
but the three asylums were all needed; they were immediately 
filled and were soon overcrowded. And there has been no 
hospital for the insane more successfully managed than the one 
established in Richmond. It has a widespread reputation for 
excellence throughout the country. 

The intense partisanship which prevailed during this session 
seems to-day almost inconceivable. The very first bill introduced 
into the Senate by the Democratic leader was the so-called 



74 THE STATE SENATE 

"Brown Bill," which placed the three existing benevolent insti- 
tutions, the Hospital for the Insane, the Asylum for the Blind, and 
the Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb, in charge of three boards 
composed of Democratic politicians, and presided over by one 
Dr. Harrison, a Democratic boss. This was a measure which 
made these institutions the mere plunder of party and finally 
brought such scandal upon the hospital management as to become 
a leading issue four years later in the election of 1886 which 
drove the Democrats from power .^ 

In looking over the list of bills passed at this session it is impos- 
sible to imagine a collection of more trifling and futile acts. There 
were scores of measures to legalise illegal transactions of various 
state and municipal officers. There was an act authorising chari- 
table associations to change their names; there was a new dog 
law; there was an act authorising boards of county commissioners 
to grant bounties for the destruction of woodchucks, hawks and 
owls; there were acts for the relief of sundry municipal officers 
who had lost the public moneys by depositing them in insolvent 
banks, etc. But there was not a single measure of importance to 
the state, and very few even of general interest or application. 
It is doubtful if Indiana in its entire history could furnish an 
illustration of a legislature so utterly useless, where it was not 
actually injurious, as the general assembly of 1883. 

THE SESSION OF 1 885 

Discreditable as it was, the record of this Legislature of 1883 
did not at once lead to the overthrow of the Democratic Party ; for 
1884 was the year for the election of a President. In the national 
government the Republicans were in power; many abuses existed 
and although the reform wave which had swept over Congress 
in 1883 had led to the enactment of the Civil-Service law and 
other salutary measures, there was a general distrust of the party, 
which was aggravated by its nomination of James G. Blaine for 
the presidency. Serious scandals had been connected with his 
name. The Democrats, on the other hand, had nominated Grover 

1 See "Fighting the Spoilsmen," pp. 16 to 36. 



THE SESSION OF 1885 75 

Cleveland, who had made a creditable record as governor of New 
York. He was elected, though by a narrow margin, and the 
Republicans were thrown out of power for the first time since 
the Civil War. This wave of national public sentiment kept 
Indiana still in the Democratic column. 

I was deeply impressed by the charges made against Mr. 
Blaine, supported apparently by his own letters and by his evasive 
explanations and denials. I was therefore unwilling to vote for 
him or to take any part in the campaign on his behalf, but was 
too strong a Republican to support the Democratic candidate. 
I did not vote for the presidential electors at all, but cast my 
ballot for the remaining candidates on the Republican ticket. 
Such a course is rarely justifiable. A voter ought generally to 
choose the less of two evils, but I could not make up my mind 
to break away so quickly from all associations with the party 
to which I had been devoted and which I was then representing 
in the senate of my own state. 

The refusal to vote for Mr. Blaine inevitably aroused intense 
indignation. I was hooted and jeered at as I rode through the 
streets, and on one occasion a crowd of men and boys assembled 
with the intention of marching out to my house, breaking the 
windows, defacing the walls and giving other similar evidences 
of their disapproval. From this, however, they were dissuaded 
through the counsels of Col. Bridgland, an old friend of mine, 
former consul at Havre, whose stalwart Republicanism could not 
be suspected by any one in this patriotic gathering. A petition 
was started asking for my resignation as senator, but somehow 
the project fell still-born and it was never presented. 

By the time the Legislature had convened, much of this effer- 
vescence of wrath had passed away, and I was welcomed with 
cordiality by my old associates. There were only seventeen Re- 
publicans all told in the Senate of 1885, barely more than one- 
third — just enough, if we all stayed away, to break a quorum and 
prevent the passage of obnoxious measures. 

This Republican minority was a pretty creditable body of men. 
There was not one of them whom I ever suspected of personal 
corruption. We worked together in great harmony on nearly 
every subject and in entire good- will. The only important occa- 



76 THE STATE SENATE 

sion where we failed to co-operate with unanimity on a political 
measure was in respect to two apportionment bills which gerry- 
mandered Indiana in such a way as to give Democrats nearly 
twice as much voting power as Republicans. The provisions of 
these bills were so outrageous that I, for one, advocated breaking 
up a quorum to prevent them from becoming laws. It seemed 
to me then and still seems to me that the measures were so 
iniquitous that they justified this revolutionary action. 

I offered to contribute largely to pay the fines imposed by law 
upon those who absented themselves. All were willing to co- 
operate in this extreme measure except two, one of whom felt 
himself bound by his promise to his constituents not to take such 
a step, a position which we of course respected. 

The Democratic members were also cordial at the beginning 
of the session, especially so because I had not voted for Blaine. 
They placed me upon the most important committees — even 
offered me the chairmanship of the Committee on Railroads, but 
I did not care to be the only Republican so honoured, nor was 
I willing to serve on that committee since I had been for many 
years a railroad lawyer and did not think it would be seemly to 
take a leading part in railroad legislation. 

The Senate had a new presiding officer at this session, Mr. 
Hanna, the Republican Lieutenant-Governor in 1883, being suc- 
ceeded by General Mahlon D. Manson, a Democrat. He was a 
veteran officer of both the Mexican and Civil wars, a venerable 
man of high character, and universally esteemed. His prede- 
cessor had been a skilled parliamentarian and an eager partisan. 
Gen. Manson was an honest old gentleman, without the slightest 
knowledge of parliamentary law, but so transparently fair in his 
conduct and his rulings that not one of us ever felt disposed to 
take any advantage of him. Whenever a tangle would arise over 
motions to amend, to commit, to lay on the table, the previous 
question, etc., he would not attempt to decide these issues, but 
would say, "Now it seems to me that this would be about the fair 
way to settle the matter," and it always was so fair that nobody 
ever objected. He undoubtedly gave to our Republican minority 
all the rights we were entitled to. I sat directly in front of him 
and was always recognised if I addressed him first (which was 



THE SESSION OF 1885 77 

often enough), and on the closing day, after we had unanimously 
voted our appreciation of the justice and impartiality of his rul- 
ings and our strong personal esteem, he invited the senator from 
Wayne to lead in singing the long-metre doxology as a conclud- 
ing ceremony. The senator from Wayne made a lamentable effort 
to comply with his request, an effort which was only saved from 
utter collapse by the co-operation of others who were better 
skilled. 

General Manson did a number of odd things. On one occasion, 
without our knowing anything about it, he brought a venerable 
lady up to his platform and seated her beside him and then told 
us that Mrs. Sarah T. Bolton, the author of "Paddle Your Own 
Canoe" and other poems, would now address us. This she did, 
reciting the poem for our benefit. Nobody ever thought of ob- 
jecting to anything that Manson did, and no finer illustration 
could be found of the influence of a simple and lovable character 
upon a turbulent and often unreasonable body of men than the 
control of the Senate by this old warrior during the session of 1885. 

In looking over the chronicles of this session and the abstracts 
of the debates in the Brevier reports, I am confronted with a record 
of remarkable garrulity. I introduced more bills and made a 
great many more speeches than any other man in the Legislature, 
and at this moment I wonder that my fellow-members bore with 
me as well as they did. That a man of no great experience 
should be telling a body of this description what it ought to do 
upon every possible subject is not easily to be endured. They 
had, however, an effective remedy — they could easily vote me 
down, which they generally did. 

I introduced as the first measure of the session a Civil- 
Service bill similar in its provisions to the federal law. I ad- 
dressed the Senate on the subject at length, setting forth as fully 
as possible the advantages of the competitive system and urging 
its adoption. Quite a large audience had gathered on this occa- 
sion. Among the auditors was the Vice-President elect, Hon. 
Thomas A. Hendricks, who, while on the same ticket with Mr. 
Cleveland, was not at all in favour of this "schoolmaster plan," 
as he called it. He probably came out of curiosity to hear what 
could be said in favour of such an impracticable scheme. The 



78 THE STATE SENATE 

Democrats never intended to allow the bill to became a law, 
but they gave me the compliment of supporting it upon the 
second reading and it was ordered engrossed. When it came up 
for final passage a number of these votes were changed, and it 
was defeated. 



INVESTIGATION OF THE STATE TREASURY 

When the Legislature of 1885 convened, Albert G. Porter, the 
Republican Governor whose term was just expiring, called our 
special attention in his message to the condition of the funds of 
the state, and recommended an examination into the condition of 
the Treasury. I accordingly moved for a special joint committee 
to count the money and report what disposition had been made 
of the public funds. The resolution, however, was opposed, and 
an amendment adopted that the committee should report, first, 
what legislation was desirable and, second, whether any investi- 
gation was necessary! I was made one of the members of this 
committee. 

Mr. Warren G. Sayre had been appointed by the House of 
Representatives as the Republican member for that body, and 
he and I, who were old friends from the previous session, made up 
our minds that if the Democratic majority in the committee 
stifled an investigation we would lay bare their conduct before 
the respective houses. 

The committee counted some seventy-six hundred dollars in 
cash and looked at certain drafts, checks, certificates of deposit, 
and county orders shown by the Treasurer, amounting to some 
four hundred and eighty-odd thousand more, but they limited 
themselves to this inspection and made no enquiries as to the 
ownership or validity of any of these assets. The majority re- 
fused to allow us to ask whether any interest had been received, 
or indeed to ask any questions whatever or to count any special 
deposits or enquire concerning the solvency of the depositaries. 
The committee then adjourned to enable the majority to prepare 
their report. 

But in spite of these handicaps Mr. Sayre and I had observed 
some curious facts. Ninety-six thousand dollars had been de- 



INVESTIGATION OF THE STATE TREASURY 79 

posited in one of the banks on Sunday, when the bank was not 
open; in a number of the vouchers purporting to be several 
months old the ink was fresh; sixty-four thousand dollars were 
in county orders long past due and unpaid, and as to some of 
these the Treasurer said he would gladly remit the interest if he 
could get the principal. As to a fifty- thousand-dollar special 
deposit we were informed that the sum had been borrowed and 
was not the property of the Treasurer at all ; and finally we learned 
that thirteen thousand dollars had been deposited in two in- 
solvent banks. All the securities and vouchers had been taken 
in violation of law. 

When the committee reconvened, the majority report (which 
had been prepared in caucus) was read to us. It declared that 
since the state had furnished the Treasurer no safe place to 
keep the money, his disposition of the funds involved the least 
possible risk, and that there was no reason why there should be 
any further investigation. 

The majority were in such haste that they told Mr. Sayre and 
myself that we might present our minority report directly to the 
two houses without first submitting it to the whole committee. 
We worked far into the night upon this document which set forth 
the foregoing irregularities. On the following morning I read the 
report to the Senate as impressively as possible, with emphasis 
upon each of the shortcomings disclosed. The astonishment and 
rage of the Democratic members was unbounded. The majority 
of the Committee had not observed the fresh ink, the Sunday dates 
and other circumstances which made our report so formidable. 
Senator McCullough, the Democratic leader, declared that our 
purpose was political, to show that the Treasurer had received 
interest on the state's money and then go to the people with the 
cry that this belonged to the state. By not giving the Treasurer 
any secure place to keep the funds and by allowing him only the 
pitiful salary of three thousand dollars, the Legislature had rec- 
ognised that the interest which the Treasurer got from the funds 
was his own! 

But it was not only this sort of logic which adorned the record 
of our proceedings on the subject of the State Treasury. There 
were also gems of passionate oratory. Among these was a speeclj 



8o THE STATE SENATE 

from "Green Smith," the senator from Jackson and Jennings. 
"From what source do these charges come?" demanded Mr. Smith. 
"Who is the witness that has thus borne testimony? Eye hath not 
seen his hideous form; ear hath not heard his lying voice; he has 
not been unmasked to the public gaze, nor has he written his 
name in the book of public accusation, but from the filth and 
the grease of the gutter the puny head of this vile calumniator 
arises, smoking with the fumes of hate, and through the channels 
of vague suspicion and dishonourable rumour he breathes his 
malicious poison into the ears of the people of Indiana. But 
since silence has cast the mantle of protection about the head 
of the unworthy author of this political libel, it may not be 
improper if I should say that the ex-Governor of Indiana, from 
the beginning of this investigation, shadowed the minority like a 
ghost of ill-omen, and with his cold and designing nature guided 
its every action and inspired its every motive. . . . The minority 
report is as much his work as if he had penned it. The hand 
is the hand of Esau, but the voice is the voice of Jacob." 

The most striking feature of the debate came in the speech of 
Rufus Magee, the Democratic senator from Logansport, a man, 
as I have said, of admirable independence. He declared that he 
could not see why this enquiry was not to be met in that spirit 
of fairness in which a man would wish to meet it who desired 
close scrutiny as to his trust. He cared not whether the insinua- 
tions of Governor Porter were begotten in malice or not, the 
people had a right to know whether the moneys they had paid 
for taxes were on hand. He undertook to say they were not. He 
charged that on this very day a warrant drawn against the gen- 
eral fund had been protested, and he had the authority of the 
gentleman who held the warrant for saying so. The Treasurer 
of the State ought at once to invite the General Assembly to 
make a complete investigation. 

Mr. Hilligass followed with a bitter tirade against the minority 
of the Committee. Both he and Green Smith were very personal, 
and the words "liar and falsifier" had been uttered with great 
vehemence. It was now my turn to close the debate for the day. 
In the gentlest tones and the most benevolent language I could 
command I replied that I would not retort in kind with the epi- 



INVESTIGATION OF THE STATE TREASURY 8i 

thets in which they had indulged. The senator from Jennings 
did not lie, he was merely mistaken. At this mild rejoinder the 
galleries and the Senate itself gave evidence of amusement and 
approval. I then pointed out how we had learned each fact in 
our report and asked why the Indianapolis Scfitinel and the Cin- 
cinnati Enquirer, both Democratic organs, took the same view 
that we did, and why Magee and other Democratic leaders had 
insisted that the Treasury needed an investigation. I also ex- 
hibited a certified copy of a claim made by the Treasurer for 
the purpose of obtaining a dividend upon moneys of the State 
lost in the Fletcher and Sharpe bank. When the debate closed 
late in the afternoon we had won a distinct victory in the argu- 
ment. 

On the following day the discussion was resumed. Mr. McCul- 
lough closed the argument. What good, he asked, would the in- 
vestigation do? Why take the time of the Legislature in enquir- 
ing what interest had been received? If the Legislature would 
turn its attention from this political claptrap and secure the peo- 
ple's money for the future, it would perform its duty. Within 
a few days the Treasurer would be required to give a bond for 
seven hundred thousand dollars and the men who would go on 
this bond would investigate the matter for themselves. Upon con- 
cluding his speech Mr. McCullough moved the previous ques- 
tion; it was adopted, the majority report was concurred in, and 
the investigation suppressed. 

The legislation proposed by the committee did something to 
protect the state funds by requiring a larger bond, but it en- 
abled the Treasurer legally to deposit and invest the state money 
in banks and elsewhere without accounting for interest, a course 
which succeeding Treasurers of both parties continued to follow. 
For many years the office of State Treasurer was believed to pro- 
duce enormous returns to those who managed it in this improper 
way. No actual defalcation afterwards came to light, but it was 
many years before this wasteful system was abolished.^ 

2 There was another gem of oratory in these debates. Tn the other 
branch of the General Assembly Mr. Patton, one of the Democratic 
leaders, in answer to the criticisms of the Treasurer made by Mr. 
Sayre, closed his speech with the following peroration which in the 



82 THE STATE SENATE 

TOLERATION TOWARD THE NEGRO' ^'^^'^J 

Reactionary on most subjects as this Legislature was, it dis- 
played liberality in its treatment of the negro quite unusual in 
a Democratic body. One of the two members of the House of 
Representatives from my own county was the Rev. J. M. Town- 
send, a mulatto, the pastor of one of the negro churches in Rich- 
mond. He was a man of high character, of gentlemanly behaviour 
and considerable attainments, being well educated and having 
travelled in various parts of the world. He was universally es- 
teemed by his fellow-members, and the Democrats appeared to 
vie with the Republicans in their respectful and courteous treat- 
ment of him. He went with us, without objection on the part 
of any one, on several junketing expeditions, dined at the same 
table with the rest of us, and was treated so far as I could see 
in exactly the same manner as if he were a white man. When, 
however, he introduced into the House a bill abolishing the disa- 
bilities of his race and urged its enactment in an able speech, the 
Republicans supported the measure, but the Democratic major- 
ity voted it down. But a Democratic senator. Dr. Thompson of 
Indianapolis, introduced a civil-rights bill which provided for 
giving to all people without regard to race or previous condition 
the advantages of all places of public accommodation and amuse- 

tropical luxuriance of its imagery and mixed metaphors would be hard 
to match : 

"The gentleman from Wabash and Kosciusko puts on his feathers 
and war-paint, constitutes himself the Republican Warwick, and like 
the Colossus of Rhodes bestrides the swash of Republican corruption 
and attempts to purify the polluted waters of the Stygian stream by 
dragging the untarnished reputation of Democratic officers into it, 
but the gentleman, like the puny, ephemeral insect which dances in the 
sunshine for a moment and then ignominiously perishes, when he came 
in contact with the blaze of Democratic investigation with his false 
charges, was scorched to death, and he cannot avert the fate of his 
party, which will be overwhelmed by the waves of oblivion and sunk 
deeper in obscurity than the long-lost Atlantis, which lies buried 
fathoms deep at the bottom of the ocean. We have opened the books, 
and the first score is for an honest man and Democratic reform!" 
Mr. Patten's predictions were not however confirmed by the subsequent 
State election in which the Democrats were disastrously defeated. 



TOLERATION TOWARD THE NEGRO 83 

ment, and providing penalties for violation of the law. Its pro- 
visions were substantially the same as those of the federal civil- 
rights bill, which had recently been declared unconstitutional 
because the subject was properly one for state and not for na- 
tional legislation. This bill was passed by a very large majority 
and became a law. 

I cannot look back upon this period of toleration toward the 
negro and compare it with the relapse into rate prejudice which 
has taken place since that time without keen regret. It would 
be quite impossible now for a negro, however excellent his char- 
acter or high his qualifications, to be elected to the Legislature, 
and when I think of the numerous conferences I had with Mr. 
Townsend upon the measures before us, in which he was always 
animated by the sole purpose of promoting the public welfare, 
I cannot but feel that we have gone back a long way from the 
ideal which we ought to have: that personal character and attain- 
ments, and not race, sex, nor anything else beyond a man's con- 
trol should be made the standard of selection for public office 
and the basis of our treatment of individuals. Our country has 
no doubt the right to protect itself against an unlimited immi- 
gration of people belonging to other races which might threaten 
its institutions and character, but in its treatment of its own 
citizens it can well afford to be absolutely just. 



CHAPTER V 

PUBLIC QUESTIONS 

Slowly the gates of opportunity 

Open at last, and ever more and more 
Woman is ruler of her destiny; 

Shattered is many a bond that once she bore; 
All shall be broken ! Man shall seek her aid, 

Not in the circle of the hearth alone, 
But in the halls of state, where wife and maid 

Shall speak with voice as potent as his own. 
God speed the moment when in every land 
All doors shall open to a woman's hand 1 

— To Womankind. 

woman's suffrage 

After moving to Indiana, a careful study of Mill's "Subjection 
of Women" and Spencer's "Social Statics" convinced me that the 
notion that women ought to be kept out of all political rights 
was founded, not upon the reason of the thing nor upon the essen- 
tial differences of the sexes, but upon custom, prejudice and pre- 
conceived opinion. It was noticeable that the lower the grade of 
civilisation the more completely were women kept in subjection to 
men. I had once seen when travelling across the plain in 
Nebraska in 1870, a Pawnee warrior and his wife trudging back 
to the reservation. The man had upon his shoulder nothing but 
his gun. His squaw bent under a load of hay that seemed big 
and heavy enough for an ox. Finally the man grew tired of 
carrying the gun, put it on top of the hay, and went on unen- 
cumbered. This was typical of the treatment of women among 
savages; as civilisation advanced and there was a greater regard 
for justice, the condition of women improved, and it seemed 
natural to believe that in its highest stages women would be re- 
garded politically and in every other way as the equals of men. 
If it were true that taxation without representation was tyranny, 



WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE 8$ 

why should women be taxed and be subject to the laws and yet 
not be represented in making them? The demand for woman's 
suffrage was really the demand for woman's liberty, for it was 
suffrage which, in the last analysis, framed the laws that deter- 
mined how far individual liberty should be restricted by the state. 
The unlimited right of one class or sex to make the laws which 
should control another was essentially tyranny. 

In the early eighties Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell came 
to Richmond to attend a convention of Indiana suffragists. I was 
greatly impressed with the logical arguments of Mr. Blackwell and 
the winning persuasiveness of Lucy Stone, and the friendship then 
formed with them lasted as long as they lived. 

At that time it was proposed that a constitutional amendment 
granting suffrage to women should be submitted by the Indiana 
Legislature to the people for adoption. I was asked at this 
meeting to express my views upon the subject, which I did in 
some remarks that were favourably received. Not long after- 
wards, at a convention of the American Woman's Suffrage Asso- 
ciation in Chicago, I was elected its president. There were at 
this time two suffrage associations in the country. One of them, 
the "American," was under the leadership of Lucy Stone, Henry 
B. Blackwell, Julia Ward Howe, and Mary A. Livermore, and the 
other, the National Woman's Suffrage Association, under the lead- 
ership of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, Anna 
Howard Shaw was prominent in both. There had been a division 
in the ranks of the suffragists some years before, the views of the 
National Association being more radical than those of the Ameri- 
can. The National devoted its energies mainly toward influencing 
Congress to pass an amendment to the Federal Constitution grant- 
ing suffrage to women, and the American mainly to propaganda 
in the various states. Some of these states, for instance, Wyoming, 
had already incorporated provisions for woman's suffrage in their 
constitutions. 

It had been the custom of the American Association to elect 
alternately a man and a woman as its president. Henry Ward 
Beecher had at one time held that position. I was chosen in 
what happened to be the man's year, but at the end of that year 
I was again elected, contrary to the previous custom, and I re- 



86 PUBLIC QUESTIONS 

mained in that office until the two bodies merged in the National- 
American Association in 1890.^ 

After the two associations united there was a feeling that the 
management should be more exclusively in the hands of women, 
which was indeed quite natural. I therefore dropped out of 
active participation in their work, though I afterwards spoke at 
some of their meetings and still continued to be active in the 
movement in other ways. I was acting chairman of the Com- 
mittee on Suffrage at the Congress Auxiliary to the World's Fair 
at Chicago in 1893, and was much embarrassed when, at a mass 
meeting in the Art Institute at which Susan B. Anthony presided, 
she requested' me to rise so that she might show the audience the 
man who had been president of the American Association and 
who had done so much in various ways for equal suffrage! I never 
felt quite so sheepish as when thus exhibited. 

IMiss Anthony was not always tactful, but she had a high qual- 
ity of another sort: a sturdy honesty in saying the thing she meant 
and the thing she considered right, whether or not it was palatable 
and appropriate. Her predominant characteristic was her daunt- 
less moral courage. She died March 13, 1906, without seeing the 
accomplishment of all she had striven for, although she plainly 
saw the beginning of the end — the enactment of laws granting to 
married women power over their property and children, as well as 
limited political rights in many states, and the full right of suffrage 
in a few of the newer states of the West. Since her death she has 
become even more widely known than in her lifetime on account 
of the constitutional amendment which bears her name. 

I cannot leave this subject without relating an incident, which, 
while it has no direct relation to woman's suffrage, occurred in 
connection with one of the meetings of the American Woman's 
Suffrage Association. 

While attending an annual convention of that Association held 
at Minneapolis, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe and I had been asked to 
go over to St. Paul one evening and speak. There was no hall 

iThe convention where this was done was held in Washington. 
Mrs. Stanton delivered the final annual address for the National and 
I for the American. (See Appendix II.) 



CIVIL SERVICE REFORM 87 

available, and those in charge of the meeting had secured for us 
a Jewish synagogue. The train brought us to the city nearly an 
hour before the meeting, and on going to the synagogue Mrs. 
Howe and I found the rabbi and his two sons putting wood into 
the stove on the lower floor in order to heat the room above. 
After they had finished, the rabbi began to talk with me, and he 
asked me among other things if I was acquainted with Felix Adler. 
I told him that Dr. Adler had been a student at Columbia College 
when I was there and that I knew him well. Whereupon he said 
to me, "That is a very fine young man. He was the son of the 
Rabbi Adler of the Temple on Fifth Avenue. Do you know 
what was the salary of the rabbi of that Temple? It was ten 
thousand dollars a year. Now this young man graduated, as you 
know, at Columbia College and was then sent to Germany to com- 
plete his education. He was a young man of great talent, and 
it was generally understood that when his father retired he would 
succeed him. But when he came back from Europe a reception 
was held for him, and what do you think the young man did? 
He told the members of that congregation that he could no longer 
believe in the faith of his fathers. Now I was very sorry for 
that, but I want to tell you, Mr. Foulke, that was a very honest 
young man who could throw away ten thousand dollars a year 
just for the sake of telling the truth!" 

Some years afterwards Dr. Adler came to spend a day or two 
with me at Richmond, and I told him the story. He smiled, but 
did not deny it. 

CIVIL SERVICE REFORM 

The public question to which I have given more attention than 
to any other is Civil Service Reform. I began to take part in 
the movement for this reform shortly after the enactment of the 
Pendleton Law, and my interest and activities in it have con- 
tinued up to the present time. 

Since an account of these activities has already been given in a 
previous book,^ they will not be considered here in detail. 

2 "Fighting the Spoilsmen," Putnam's, 1919. 



88 PUBLIC QUESTIONS 

It was in 1883 that I joined the National Civil Service Reform 
League and became associated with George William Curtis, Carl 
Schurz, Dorman B. Eaton, and other leaders of the move- 
ment. 

A Civil Service Reform Association was organised in Indiana, 
of which I became the first president. We made a searching 
investigation of the conditions in the Hospital for the Insane at 
Indianapolis, which was then under political management and in 
which the spoils system led to the most horrible abuses of the 
helpless patients. After years of controversy, in which the ques- 
tion was repeatedly made a political issue, this partisan system 
was at last overthrown. 

Our association also investigated the Federal service of In- 
diana under President Cleveland, who had inaugurated a system 
of removals of Republicans from office under secret charges and 
had permitted other abuses. Mr. Lucius B. Swift and I appeared 
before a Senate Committee and reported the results of our 
enquiries. 

Cleveland's shortcomings in regard to the Civil Service had 
much to do with the election of General Harrison as his suc- 
cessor. But Harrison disappointed us still more. The removals 
upon secret charges (which he had denounced before his election) 
were continued under his administration, and the political changes 
made in the Federal service were all but universal. 

I was appointed chairman of an investigating committee of 
the National League and spent a winter in Washington enquiring 
into the condition of the Federal service, which was in many re- 
spects deplorable. We published our conclusions, and these were 
not without influence in the presidential campaign in which Har- 
rison was defeated. During his second term Mr. Cleveland made 
numerous and highly important additions to the classified lists 
and in other ways showed his friendship for the competitive sys- 
tem, but when McKinley followed there was again a period of 
reaction. I was once more made chairman of an investigating 
committee, and we published nine reports showing serious short- 
comings. When, after McKinley's death, Roosevelt succeeded, 
I became one of the Civil Service Commissioners and took part 
in many extensions and improvements of the classified system, 



PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION 89 

until, in 1903, I was compelled to relinquish my position on ac- 
count of failing health, 

Mr. Taft, who followed Roosevelt, was very friendly to the 
law, but was sometimes lax in enforcing it, and I made on my 
own account certain investigations and remonstrances in cases of 
this kind. 

After Mr. Wilson's election the National Civil Service Reform 
League again had up-hill work, for in spite of his theoretical 
friendliness to the system, one class of positions after another 
was omitted from it by Congress with his approval, and with the 
exception of Presidential postmasters (whose places were made 
competitive by executive order) a backward movement could be 
distinctly observed. 

The general advance, however, during all these years has been 
very great. The classified system, which began with about four- 
teen thousand places, has now grown to many hundreds of thou- 
sands. Political coercion and activity have greatly diminished, 
and instead of this vast multitude of places becoming the mere 
spoils of politics they have been largely distributed among men 
who have shown by competitive tests that they were the best 
qualified for the positions they sought. The system has also been 
extended to a great number of states and cities. 

The work by which this has been accomplished was often 
strenuous. The abuse heaped upon us in early days by the poli- 
ticians whom we were stripping of power was venomous and long 
continued. The scenes in which I took part were often pictur- 
esque and amusing, and to look back to-day upon the work done 
and its fortunate outcome is a source of unbounded satisfaction. 



PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION 

Among the various subjects discussed at the World's Suffrage 
Congress in 1893 was proportional representation, a system by 
which minorities can be represented in legislative bodies accord- 
ing to their size. A local club had been organised in Chicago 
to promote this system, and one afternoon there was a vigorous 
debate on the subject. It was at this time that I became con- 
vinced of the importance of this reform. 



90 PUBLIC QUESTIONS 

Very few Americans realise how clumsy is the district system 
of electing representatives. It gives no certain assurance that 
the wishes of the people will be represented at all. A majority 
of the electorate may be so distributed that it cannot control the 
majority of the districts. The state of New York can furnish 
illustrations. It has often happened that the governor, elected 
by the whole body of the people, has been a Democrat, and yet 
that the Legislature was Republican and must have misrepresented 
the political views of the voters. Under the district system this 
could not be avoided, for the great Democratic majorities were 
massed in the city of New York, and the representatives elected 
by these were more than offset by those chosen by the slenderer 
Republican majorities in other parts of the state. 

This is bad enough where no conscious effort is made to pre- 
vent fair representation, but it becomes worse when the party 
temporarily in power purposely arranges the districts in such a 
manner as to give itself thirty, forty, or fifty per cent more places 
than it is justly entitled to and thus retains control of a legis- 
lative body, although defeated by a popular vote. This is simply 
usurpation under the forms of law. 

Again, since the different sections of the state or city con- 
tinually change in population, frequent readjustments are neces- 
sary and reapportionments take place at stated periods a few 
years apart with the same wearisome political struggle between 
the parties, the one in power seeking to take unfair advantage of 
its opponent. 

The district system prevents the normal and healthy union of 
those who think alike and desire to vote for the same candidate. 
These are now separated from each other by arbitrary lines and 
are often prevented from acting together. There is no law to 
prevent men from uniting to build ships and railroads to the 
extent of their capital. But here we have a law which says to 
the voters, "You shall not combine your voting capital — your 
ballots — unless you all live in the same district." What should 
we think of a rule dividing the stockholders of a great railroad 
company by geographical lines and prohibiting those residing in 
different districts from voting for the same directors? 

The district system offers special facilities for corruption in 



PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION 91 

the shape of certain closely contested districts where the change 
of a few votes will secure a different representative and the change 
of a few representatives will change the character of the Legisla- 
ture. The vote-buyer confines his activities to these "pivotal" 
districts. Here a hundred purchased votes are of more political 
value than a thousand freely given elsewhere. If districts were 
abolished and representation were proportional, the vote-buyer 
could not purchase a larger proportion of legislators than would 
be represented by the votes he bought. 

Another evidence of the crudity of our present method is seen 
in the great number of wasted votes, Under the district system 
these generally amount to nearly half, and in some cases to more 
than half, of the whole. If I am a Republican and a Democrat 
is elected in my district, my vote has been in vain. This is 
unnecessary. Under Proportional Representation nearly every 
vote counts in electing a proportionate number of representatives 
from each minority party. 

Another objection to small districts (and districts electing a 
single member are the smallest possible) is that they lead to the 
election of small men. A man of ability and reputation will be 
reluctant to be the mere representative of the fifth ward, but he 
would take a different view of his office if he were one of the 
representatives of a whole city. Proportional representation will 
produce broader men, and they will act upon broader principles. 
Moreover, the district system has led to the custom that the mem- 
ber elected must reside within the district he represents. In some 
cases, indeed, this is required by law. The result is that the 
choice of available candidates is needlessly restricted. 

There is another reason why the present system is likely to lead 
to the choice of inferior men. The principal question considered 
when a candidate is nominated is his availability — how many 
votes will he poll? The man who has taken a leading and aggres- 
sive part in public affairs treads upon many toes and makes many 
enemies, so a candidate must be chosen who will not awaken oppo- 
sition, an agreeable man, a commonplace man, who keeps a safe 
position upon the fence. The district system fastens servility upon 
the representative. Proportional representation, upon the other 
hand, stimulates independence and leadership, for if a member can 



92 PUBLIC QUESTIONS 

retain a single group who prefer him to his competitors he can 
still be elected, however unpopular he may be to all others, and 
he can thus remain true to his convictions. Proportional repre- 
sentation thus leads to the election of abler and more independ- 
ent men. 

The main objection to proportional representation is that if 
every phase of thought is thus allowed to appear in the repre- 
sentative body, this body will always be made up of groups, no 
one of which can control its action or be responsible for its legis- 
lative policy, and that some small group may hold the balance of 
power, whereas an absolute majority one way or the other is 
desirable. 

But is this the fact? For executive and administrative pur- 
poses unity is necessary to good government; but is an absolute 
majority in a deliberative asseinbly desirable if there be no such 
majority among the people at large? For legislative action we 
need diversity; deliberation induces compromises and the com- 
parison of different ideas is necessary for the best result. 

By the present system these compromises are made, before the 
election, within the two great parties and amid the excitement 
of a political convention. When proportional representation is 
adopted, those compromises will be made in the legislative body 
itself where all can see more clearly the strong and the weak 
points of every claim. Small factions may occasionally control 
the balance of power and get more than they are entitled to, but 
this will only be the case where there is some greater issue be- 
tween the larger parties which compels the relinquishment of a 
smaller thing for the sake of obtaining a greater thing. The fair- 
est compromises are most likely to be made when all phases of 
popular thought are proportionately represented. 

This kind of representation is particularly valuable in munici- 
palities, where it offers the best means of divorcing local govern- 
ment from national politics. If groups are chosen in the City 
Council each representing some particular point of view, which 
will be largely upon local questions, business administration will 
naturally take the place of political administration. 

It is astonishing to any one who studies the subject to see how 
admirably the systems of proportional representation established 



PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION 93 

in the Swiss cantons and municipalities, as well as in Belgium, 
Denmark, and other places, have secured the desirable results 
above set forth. I could not fail to be interested in a movement 
which promised to eliminate so many evils, and I accordingly 
became an active supporter of proportional representation. 

On the invitation of Dr. Felix Adler I spoke on November 
1 2 th, 1893, before the Society of Ethical Culture at Carnegie 
Hall, New York, upon that subject, and two days later I had 
a joint discussion at the Nineteenth Century Club at Sherry's 
with Judge William J. Gaynor, afterwards mayor of New York. 

The New York papers published editorials on the subject, and 
those interested in the movement thought this would be a good 
opportunity to organise a society to advocate proportional repre- 
sentation. Accordingly an invitation to a dinner given by the 
promoters ^ of this plan was sent me, and we discussed the subject 
in detail. Within a short time as a result of this conference the 
Proportional Representation Society of New York was created 
with Mr. Simon Sterne as president. 

In the meantime a national organisation, the American Pro- 
portional Representation League, had been formed in Chicago, 
and I was made president. By the untiring efforts of Stoughton 
Cooley, the secretary, The Proportional Representation Review, 
a quarterly magazine, was regularly issued for a number of years. 
It contained valuable articles not only from prominent Americans, 
but also from many foreign contributors. 

Some two years after the organisation of the League a conven- 
tion was held at Saratoga which, after a discussion of two days, 
adopted resolutions advocating the Swiss system. Since that time, 
however, the Hare system has been generally preferred for all 
elections in which the ballots can be conveniently assembled.* 

s Horace E. Deming, Thomas G. Shearman, Daniel S. Remsen, 
Charles S. Fairchild, Edmond Kelly, Oscar S. Straus, Wm. W. Ivins, 
Simon Sterne, Alfred Bishop Mason, Felix Adler, and Dorman B. 
Eaton. 

* For the details of the various systems see "Proportional Repre- 
sentation," by John R. Commons, pp. 114, 119, et seq., and the Model 
City Charter prepared by the National Municipal League, 1916. Also 
see a special supplement of the Proportional Representation Review, 
January, 1919- 



94 PUBLIC QUESTIONS 

The work of the League was conducted mainly by correspond- 
ence, and the Association has been continued down to the present 
time. Its successive secretaries have shown remarkable energy; 
the present incumbent, Mr. C. G. Hoag, of Haverford, has liter- 
ally devoted his life to this cause, and it is mainly due to his 
unremitting labours and to those of Prof. Augustus Raymond 
Hatton of the Western Reserve University that the Hare system 
has been introduced and successfully carried on in Ashtabula, 
Ohio; Sacramento, California, and elsewhere. 

The importance of Proportional Representation has become 
much greater since the growth of the Soviet government in Russia 
and the threat to existing institutions caused by the propagation 
of Bolshevik principles. It seems to offer a satisfactory solution 
for the claims of those who insist that various trades or guilds 
should be represented rather than mere geographical units. It 
does not, however, make such trades or guilds the only basis of 
representation. Each citizen, be he farmer, business man or 
workman, may unite with those of his own neighbourhood, his 
own trade, his own class, his own race, or his own mode of 
thinking in other matters, just as he will, without being forced 
into any particular kind of combination. Constituencies thus 
form themselves and constantly adapt themselves to new require- 
ments, and the legislative or governing body is composed of all 
these groups in proportion to their actual numbers, and can really 
speak for the people in the way they desire. The legislative body 
becomes like the image in a camera representing the whole public, 
reduced in size to the limits required for deliberation. 

In 192 1 I retired from the presidency of the League, being 
succeeded by Mr. Richard S. Childs, who had been long con- 
nected with the Short Ballot movement and with the work of 
the National Municipal League. 

THE RUSSIAN QUESTION 

I became greatly interested in the history of Russia, especially 
in the events showing the encroachments of that empire in the 
Balkan peninsula, in Central Asia, and in the Far East. In 1887 
I published a monograph entitled "Slav and Saxon" in Putnam's 



THE RUSSIAN QUESTION 95 

Series of "Questions of the Day," showing what then seemed the 
menace of the autocracy to free institutions. There were after- 
wards two revised editions of this book bringing the historical 
review do^vn to 1904. 

It was about the time of the publication of the first edition 
that Russia submitted to America the proposal for a new treaty 
for the extradition of criminals providing that murder or man- 
slaughter, comprising the wilful or negligent killing of the sover- 
eign or chief magistrate of the state or any member of his family 
as well as an attempt to commit or participate in said crimes, 
should not be considered an offence of a political character. 

This treaty was signed and submitted to the Senate for ratifi- 
cation. It seemed evident to me that under these words, appar- 
ently so reasonable, the Russian Government would soon ask the 
United States to surrender all persons suspected of revolutionary 
designs. 

Now extradition ought to be allowed only when the legislation 
of the state which demands it conforms to the principles adopted 
by civilised nations. In respect to political trials, Russian juris- 
prudence did not conform to these; no jury was allowed; the trial 
was by a military tribunal ; the accused was not entitled to repre- 
sentation except by some officer of the army who held his place 
and his life subject to the disposition of the government; the trial 
was secret, and the judgment and sentence were frequently pre- 
scribed beforehand. Even if the accused were acquitted he was 
by no means discharged, but might be transported by mere admin- 
istrative order to the most inhospitable regions of Siberia. 

Russia wanted the United States Government to declare that 
the revolutionary movement in Russia had no political meaning, 
and that any attempt which should endanger the Czar's life, even 
for the purpose of obtaining constitutional government, should be 
regarded as simply a plot to commit murder. This was a con- 
cession that the Russian Government had not yet got from any 
of the powers, except Germany and Austria. England had re- 
mained true to its traditional policy, and had refused. 

I urged these considerations in a circular letter addressed to 
each of the Senators. I had very earnest co-operation from David 
Turpie, one of the Senators from Indiana, and for a time the 



96 PUBLIC QUESTIONS 

effort to secure the ratification of the proposed treaty was defeated, 
but six years afterwards, under the administration of President 
Harrison, it was accomplished.^ 

I cannot but regard this treaty to-day as one of the most dis- 
honourable episodes in the history of American diplomacy. Our 
government was anxious to retain the friendship of Russia, espe- 
cially in view of the Behring Sea arbitration in Paris, which was 
then pending, but it paid too great a price. 

I afterwards became the president of the "Friends of Russian 
Freedom." This association had no very definite organisation, 
but acted as occasion offered. It was, I think, in 1904, that Cath- 
erine Breshkovsky, the "Little Mother of the Revolution," who 
had escaped from a long exile in Siberia, visited America. A 
meeting was held in Faneuil Hall in her honour, at which I pre- 

5 The following letter which I received from George Kennan ex- 
plains the manner in which it was ratified : 

"The treaty went through in 1893, not because the public was apa- 
thetic, but because the proceedings of the Senate in executive session 
were kept so secret that the public did not even know it was under 
consideration until after it had been approved. It was ratified by the 
Senate February 6th, and the first intimation the public had that 
it was even under consideration, was the resolution offered by Senator 
Turpie, in open session of the Senate, February 7th. Even then the 
treaty was supposed to be merely under consideration, and the fact 
that it had been 'ratified was not known even as late as April "th, 
when some of the strongest and best known men in New York united 
in the Charles Adams protest to the President, the Secretary of State, 
and the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate. . . . 

"The opposition to the treaty in the country at large was active, 
unanimous, and overwhelming. A number of State legislatures adopted 
resolutions of protest, including Ohio and Illinois ; their example was 
followed by all sorts of organisations, including the Federation of 
Labor ; meetings were held in all the larger cities ; and the newspapers 
of the country almost without exception denounced the treaty and 
urged the Senate not to ratify it. I myself have seventy-five or a 
hundred editorials in opposition to the treaty from the most influential 
papers in the country, and I didn't get a tenth part of them. I have 
never known the country to be more united on a question of foreign 
policy. But all this storm of protest came too late. It didn't get under 
way until March, and the treaty was secretly ratified the first week in 
February before anybody knew that a treaty abandoned six years 
earlier on account of the opposition to it had again been taken up." 



THE NATIONAL MUNICIPAL LEAGUE 97 

sided, and Mrs. Julia Ward Howe gave an address, followed by 
Madame Breshkovsky, who spoke in Russian. There was a great 
audience which packed the hall, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, 
were turned away. This audience was composed of a motley 
assembly of Russians, Poles, Bohemians, and Jews, and when 
Madame Breshkovsky rose to speak she was greeted with frenzied 
enthusiasm. She was followed by a man who spoke in Polish, 
and by another who spoke in Yiddish, both of these denouncing 
the Russian Government and the existing ministry with great 
bitterness. These speeches too were greeted with wild applause. 
Neither Mrs. Howe nor I could understand a word of them, and 
when I met her some years afterwards at her Newport home (this 
was our last meeting) I recalled these incidents to her recollec- 
tion and added, "I have no doubt they said all sorts of things 
which you and I wouldn't approve of, and very likely if we knew 
it all we might find that we had made fools of ourselves." The 
old lady, who was then nearly ninety years of age, straightened 
herself and said with quiet emphasis, "We could afford to make 
very great fools of ourselves in the cause of Russian freedom." 
I always admired Mrs. Howe, but never so much as at that 
moment. 

Some years later, when I was in Petrograd and saw Professor 
Miliukoff, the leader of the Constitutional party of the Duma, 
he told me that he was in America at the time and knew of this 
meeting in Faneuil Hall, but that he would not have dared attend 
such a meeting himself; that if he had done so he could never 
have returned to Russia. He said he hoped the Russian Gov- 
ernment would not learn that I had presided or I would have 
short shrift in that empire. But nobody there found it out. 

THE NATIONAL MUNICIPAL LEAGUE 

During the early years of the present century I began to be 
much interested in the work of the National Municipal League, 
an organisation devoted to the study of the problems of city 
government. James C. Carter of New York was its president, 
and Clinton Rogers Woodruff of Philadelphia, its secretary. 

I had attended a number of conferences of the League, had 



98 PUBLIC QUESTIONS 

made some addresses and taken part in its discussions, when in 
1910, at Buffalo, I was elected president, succeeding Charles J. 
Bonaparte, who had followed Mr. Carter in that office. I re- 
mained at the head of this organisation for five years, although 
Mr. Woodruff, the secretary, was always the responsible director 
of the work.^ 

The most important work of the League during this period 
was the preparation of a new municipal programme, including 
proposed constitutional amendments and a model charter. A 
committee was appointed for this purpose, of which I was made 
chairman.'^ We prosecuted our work assiduously for two years, 
completing our labours in December, 19 15, after which our pro- 
gramme was submitted by a referendum to all the members of 
the League (over two thousand in number), by whom it was 
finally adopted.^ 

The charter and amendments which we recommended embodied 

« I delivered each year the annual address. The first of these was 
at the meeting at Richmond, Virginia, November, 191 1, describing the 
city government of Frankfort-on-the-Main, of which I had made a 
comprehensive study while in Germany the preceding summer. The 
second was on "Expert City Management" in July, 191 2, at Los 
Angeles, to which place we had been invited by the Mayor and 
Council to give them advice as to the provisions of a new charter 
which was then being framed by a special charter commission ; the 
third was on "Public Opinion," at a meeting held in Toronto, Canada, 
in 1913 ; the fourth, delivered at Baltimore in November, 1914, de- 
scribed the recent development of city government in America ; the 
fifth, my valedictory, was at Dayton in November, 191 5. It was 
entitled "Coming of Age," since the League was then twenty-one years 
old, and in it I reviewed the work of the organisation and the gen- 
eral municipal progress in the country during this period. 

These addresses will be found in various numbers of the National 
Municipal Review. 

■^ The other members were A. Lawrence Lowell, Clinton Rogers 
Woodruff, Richard S. Childs, Delos F. Wilcox, M. N. Baker, Mayo 
Fessler, Robert Treat Paine, and Professors William Bennett Munro, 
A. R. Hatton, John A. Fairlie and Hermann G. James. 

8 The provisions of this programme are fully discussed in a book 
entitled "A New Municipal Program," containing articles written by 
various members of the committee and edited by C. R. Woodruff 
(D. Appleton & Co., 1919). 



THE NATIONAL MUNICIPAL LEAGUE 99 

in concrete form the constant development in public opinion that 
had been going on since 1899 — first, in favour of giving cities 
greater power in framing and amending their charters and ad- 
ministering their governments; second, in the abandonment of 
the so-called federal plan with its checks and balances in favour 
of a system of simpler and more responsible government with a 
city manager as the administrative head; third, in the employment 
of experts selected upon proper Civil-Service tests and without 
reference to politics; fourth, in the attempt to give the people a 
more direct control of the government by open primaries, by the 
preferential vote or by proportional representation, by a non- 
partisan ballot and by the initiative, referendum and recall. 

At the annual meeting in Dayton, Ohio, in November, 191 5, our 
work on the model charter being completed and my health being 
poor, I declined a re-election to the presidency of the League and 
was succeeded by Mr. Lawson Purdy, who was perhaps the best 
expert in the country in matters of city finance and taxation and 
was eminently qualified to take up the work on these subjects 
which then seemed to lie more immediately before us. Mr, Purdy 
was afterwards succeeded by Charles E. Hughes, who resigned 
when he became Secretary of State under President Harding, and 
was followed by Henry M. Waite, who had been city manager of 
Dayton. 



CHAPTER VI 

POLITICAL ACTIVITIES— IMPERIALISM 

Land of my heart, 
What future is before thee? Shall it be 
To lie at ease, content with thy bright past. 
Heedless of all the world, till idleness 
Relax thy limbs, and swoln with wealth and pride, 
Thou shalt abandon justice and the poor? 
Or shalt thou, reawakened, scatter wide 
The glorious tidings of a liberty 
That lifts the latch of opportunity. 
First to thy children — then to all mankind? 

— Ad Patriam. 
See infra, pp. io6, 107. 

EARLY POLITICAL AFFILIATIONS 

As the home of my childhood had been one of the stations of 
the Underground Railway at which we occasionally helped fugi- 
tive negroes on their way to liberty, we were naturally much inter- 
ested in the Slavery question, and took some part in Anti- 
Slavery propaganda. I often heard the leaders of this move- 
ment in their public addresses and have a very vivid recollection 
of the superb oratory of Wendell Phillips. No one who has 
ever listened to him can forget the effect of his wonderful deliv- 
ery. It was not like that of any other man. It was statuesque. 
I have seen him stand quietly before an audience, with one hand 
behind his back, making hardly a gesture with the other, his eyes 
nearly closed, speaking in a low, perfectly clear and rather mo- 
notonous voice, words that made your blood run cold. It was 
not that these words were in themselves always sound and rea- 
sonable. He used to "gibbet" the apologists for Slavery and 
sweep millions of guilty souls "into the Gulf" with most remorse- 
less eloquence. It was said of him that he often uttered the 
philosophy of the fishwife in the language of the philosopher. 

100 



EARLY POLITICAL AFFILIATIONS loi 

But while he was speaking, conviction was inevitable. The last 
occasion on which I remember hearing him was at a meeting 
when the Anti-Slavery Society was dissolved. Theodore Tilton, 
Lucretia Mott and a number of others had spoken ; Phillips con- 
fined himself to one reminiscence, that of a former meeting of the 
Society which was interrupted by the entrance of Marshal Isaiah 
Rynders and a troop of New York thugs and "plug-uglies." He 
told of a little Quaker lady sitting on the platform who, seeing 
her grandson among those trying to break up the meeting, said 
to him reproachfully, "Samuel, Samuel, what is thee doing here?" 
and he described as no other could have done the discomfiture 
of the boy and his companions and their speedy retreat from the 
hall. There was little in the story, but the manner of telling 
it, the quiet restraint, the clear enunciation of every word, were 
such that, while the other things said on that occasion were 
speedily forgotten, this incident still remains. 

When the Republican Party was organised we did not share 
the views of the extreme Abolitionists in their demand for "abso- 
lute, immediate, and unconditional emancipation," but rather the 
more practical demand of the new organisation for the exclusion 
of the system from the territories which were under the control 
of the Federal Government. During the Civil War we were warm 
supporters of Abraham Lincoln in his great aims — the preserva- 
tion of the Union and the emancipation of the slaves. After 
the war the course of Andrew Johnson filled us with disgust and 
we supported the Republican Congress in its policy of reconstruc- 
tion. 

Besides these national issues there were municipal questions in 
which we took a profound interest. I was practising law in New 
York at the time of the Tweed regime and still recall vividly 
the effect of the disclosures of Tammany's corruption in the New 
York Times which, with the powerful cartoons of Nast, had a 
great influence upon public opinion. I was one of the organisers 
of "The Young Men's Municipal Reform Association," which 
took an active part in the campaign against the Tweed ring, and I 
was afterwards a watcher of the count at one of the precincts on 
election day. The Tammany politicians had secured all the 
election officials in that precinct. When the ballots were counted, 



102 POLITICAL ACTIVITIES 

there were, say, 247 for the opposing candidate and 160 for the 
Tammany candidate. But the chief election officer declared the 
result exactly the reverse, 160 for the opposition and 247 for 
Tammany. This was done in a perfectly mechanical way as if the 
conclusion was a matter of course, and not one of the election 
officers appeared to notice it. I spoke up and declared that the 
figures were reversed. For a few seconds there was apparent 
embarrassment, and then, as the tally sheets were still on the 
table before us and there could be no doubt about the fact, they 
passed it off as a mere verbal mistake and corrected the returns. 
In how many precincts, if any, such a simple plan was successful 
I do not know, but it was not enough to control the result, since 
Tweed and his gang were thrown from power. 

Being much dissatisfied with the administration of President 
Grant, I attended the Liberal Republican Convention of 1872 at 
Cincinnati in company with a lot of young fellows from the 
Free Trade League, of which I was then a member. Our candi- 
date was Charles Francis Adams. But when the result of the 
final vote was the nomination of Horace Greeley, the leading 
champion of protection, we took little further interest in the 
campaign. 

HAYES AND GARFIELD CAMPAIGNS 

When I moved to Indiana in 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes, a 
clean man, though by no means eminent, was the Republican 
standard-bearer, while Samuel J. Tilden, whom I had always con- 
sidered a crafty politician, in spite of his work in the overthrow 
of Tammany, was the Democratic candidate. I decided to sup- 
port Hayes and spoke at various places in my own neighbour- 
hood. It was at this time that Tilden's "barrel" introduced an 
era of political venality in Indiana, and the evil example was 
afterwards successfully imitated by the Republicans. 

Four years later in the contest between Garfield and Hancock 
I supported Garfield, speaking in many places throughout the 
State and elsewhere in the Middle West. 

It was, I think, during this campaign that an incident occurred 
which showed me more clearly than I had ever imagined the 



THE THREE CLEVELAND CAMPAIGNS 103 

fierce animal passions which lie beneath our veneer of civilisa- 
tion. I had been asked to deliver a Republican speech in New 
Madison, a town in Ohio about twenty miles distant from Rich- 
mond. New Madison was a strong Democratic neighbourhood, 
and so intolerant were its people that they had never allowed 
a negro to live among them. A delegation from Richmond went 
over in a special train. The meeting was large and enthusi- 
astic, but there were surly faces in the crowd which lined the 
streets during our torchlight parade. We started home, and while 
the train was passing through a cornfield near the town, some 
shots rang out which were fired at us from the darkness. One 
of them entered the window at which I was sitting. 

This unprovoked attack filled every one of us with uncon- 
trollable fury. Some one cried, "Pull the rope." Not another 
word was spoken, the train stopped, and we rushed through the 
cornfield whence the shots had come. We ran a long way, nearly 
back to the town, but found no one; the miscreants had had 
too good a start. If any one had been caught in that field he 
would not have lived five minutes. I never would have dreamed 
it possible that I could have felt as I did feel during the time 
of that pursuit. The psychology of a multitude on such an occa- 
sion is inconceivable to one who has never known it. It was 
lucky we failed in our attempt. 

THE THREE CLEVELAND CAMPAIGNS 

In 1882, as we have already seen, I was elected as a Republi- 
can to represent Wayne County in the State Senate. Between 
the first and second session of my term came the Presidential 
contest between James G. Blaine and Grover Cleveland in which, 
as already stated, I declined to take part. 

Though I would not support Mr. Blaine, I can quite under- 
stand his immense popularity. I never saw him but once. It was 
at the railroad station at Richmond, where the train stopped 
for five or ten minutes, and he spoke to us from a box placed 
against the building. I think this was during the Garfield cam- 
paign, four years prior to his own nomination; it was only a 



104 POLITICAL ACTIVITIES 

word, but it was extremely effective. He had been told, he said, 
of the dangerous apathy and disaffection prevailing in the Middle 
West. He had seen nothing of it. The country was prosperous, 
the people were contented, no party was ever thrown out of 
power when this was true, the success of the Republicans at the 
election was beyond a doubt. And so indeed it proved. He 
also asked the pointed question, "Why is it that so many men 
who are free-traders when they leave school or college, become 
protectionists in after life?" 

Not only was Blaine personally very attractive, but as a 
speaker he was most tractable and satisfactory to campaign man- 
agers. In this he was quite different from Senator Roscoe Conk- 
ling, who was imperious and dictatorial. In this same Garfield 
campaign he spoke at Richmond. Prior to his address he reviewed 
a torchlight procession from the balcony in front of the hotel, 
and our mayor. General Tom Bennett, at whose side he was 
standing, gave some orders to those who were below. Conkling 
tapped him on the shoulder and said, "Mr. Mayor, will you 
please let me manage this demonstration?" 

In 1888 I supported Benjamin Harrison, the Republican can- 
didate against Grover Cleveland. Cleveland had bitterly disap- 
pointed the Civil Service reformers of our State by turning over 
the offices to Democratic spoilsmen. He had instituted the repre- 
hensible custom of removing men upon charges filed against 
them secretly which they were not permitted to see nor to 
answer. I had been associated with General Harrison in some 
professional transactions. We were very friendly; I relied upon 
his strong declarations in favour of Civil Service Reform and 
took an active part in the campaign on his behalf, speaking in 
many States. 

In this campaign, as in that which preceded it, the Independ- 
ents turned the tide. There were enough of us who returned to 
the support of the Republican candidate to secure his election. 
But Harrison's administration was by no means as good as his 
promises.^ 

He greatly disappointed those Independents who were inter- 

ipor particulars see "Fighting the Spoilsmen," Putnam's, 1919, pp. 
46-72. 



THE THREE CLEVELAND CAMPAIGNS 105 

ested in Civil Service Reform but who were no friends of the 
high tariff poHcy of the Republican Party. 

Hence it was that in 1892 when the same candidates, Cleve- 
land and Harrison, were nominated, most of the Independents now 
preferred Cleveland. He was elected by a large majority. For 
myself, I was so profoundly dissatisfied with Mr. Harrison's short- 
comings in the matter of Civil Service Reform that I criticised 
his record with considerable asperity in an address before the 
Boston Reform Club and afterwards in various speeches during 
the campaign.^ 

Mr. Cleveland's second administration, in spite of some short- 
comings at the outset, was far more creditable than the first. He 
made extensive additions to the classified Civil Service; he was 
unflinching in the maintenance of law and order when confronted 
with the disorders and riots in Chicago; he upheld the credit of 
the country by his unswerving support of the gold standard. But 
he had estranged himself from his own party, which sympathised 
with some of the elements of disorder and was in favour of a 
silver standard and the repudiation of public and private obliga- 
tions which that involved. Mr. William Jennings Bryan, who had 
come into general prominence by his "Cross of Gold" speech at 
the Chicago Convention of 1896, became the candidate of that 
party upon a free silver and low tariff platform, against William 
McKinley, the Republican candidate, who made his campaign 
upon a high tariff and gold standard platform. 

Moreover, the Democratic Party demanded "rotation in office" 
and a practical return to the spoils system. Although I was not a 
high tariff man, the peril to the country involved in a debased 
currency and a return to political spoils led me to take an eager 
and active part in the campaign, speaking in all parts of the 
country on behalf of the Republican candidate. The sentiment 
for free silver, which at the outset was overwhelming, was gradu- 
ally undermined by public discussion, and McKinley was chosen 
President. He was a man of great political tact, yielding at times 
his own convictions to what he believed to be the demands of 
the public. He also conceded too much to the spoils hunters. 
He endeavoured at first to keep us out of the war with Spain, 

2 See "Fighting the Spoilsmen," Putnam's, 1919, pp. 286-294. 



io6 POLITICAL ACTIVITIES 

but when it was forced upon him he assumed the leadership in 
the struggle and directed its course, as well as the peace proceed- 
ings at its close, with ability and wisdom. 

It was during his administration, and as a consequence of the 
war, that there arose a new political issue known as anti- 
imperialism, which played a leading part in the Presidential 
campaign of the year nineteen hundred. The circumstances giv- 
ing rise to that issue were the following. 

ANTI-IMPERIALISM 

During McKinley's administration, and as one of the conse- 
quences of the war with Spain, the American forces had taken 
possession of Manila, and the question arose, What was to be 
done with the Philippines? Admiral Dewey could hardly have 
sailed away and left Manila in control of the Spaniards with 
whom we were at war; he therefore blockaded the city. The 
Government could not leave him there alone, so an army was 
sent to his support, and the presence of our army and navy 
there contributed as much as any other fact to the speedy 
termination of the war. Our manifest duty was to protect the 
inhabitants, including the foreign residents, so the President took 
the responsibility of keeping order until it should be finally deter- 
mined what sort of government was to be established. In all 
this, it seemed to me, the President was right. 

It was at this point that the members of the "Anti-Imperialist 
League" and others began an agitation opposing the occupation of 
the Islands. A national conference of men interested in public 
affairs was called to meet at Saratoga on August 19th and 20th 
to consider the proper policy of the country in regard to the 
Philippines. Carl Schurz and Moorfield Storey were the princi- 
pal speakers for the Anti-Imperialists. Mr. Schurz spoke in the 
afternoon, I replied in the evening. The audience was not a 
large one, but was generally sympathetic with the President's pol- 
icy. On the following morning Moorfield Storey made an earnest 
plea, urging that America abstain from all interference with the 
Philippines, and the audience called upon me to reply, which I 
did amid considerable enthusiasm. A committee of some twenty 



THE CAMPAIGN OF igoo 107 

persons was appointed to draft resolutions. They were all but 
unanimous in support of the President's policy. 

Still the agitation continued. Letters, tracts and telegrams 
were sent in great quantities to American soldiers in the Philip- 
pines to discourage re-enlistments and the further prosecution 
of the war, and at a mass meeting at Central Music Hall, Chi- 
cago, there was an outburst of oratory by professors and others 
which was distinctly disloyal in a time of war. Another meeting 
was called a week later at the Auditorium as a protest against this 
propaganda, and I was called upon with others to address it. The 
great hall was filled with an intensely enthusiastic audience. 
There was much bitterness expressed against the sowers of dis- 
cord, but I confined my remarks mainly to a recital of the his- 
toric series of events, showing that the President had taken the 
only course consistent with justice and reason. 

THE CAMPAIGN OF IQOO 

As the campaign of 1900 approached it became evident that 
the Democratic Party with Mr. Bryan as its leader was about to 
espouse the cause of the Anti-Imperialists. President McKinley, 
who had brought the war to its successful conclusion, who had 
settled the terms of peace and determined the policy to be 
adopted, was necessarily the Republican candidate, and Theodore 
Roosevelt was nominated for vice-president. The Democratic 
Party reaffirmed its free silver doctrines of 1896. The main con- 
tention was that the Republican administration had been untrue 
to the principles of the Declaration of Independence in not imme- 
diately allowing the Filipinos to govern themselves in their own 
way. 

I was invited by the Republican managers in Indiana to make 
the opening speech of the campaign at English's Opera House 
in Indianapolis, in answer to an address by Mr. Bryan, who had 
accepted the nomination in that city a short time before. I spoke 
to a crowded house, and the address, discussing the meaning of 
the Declaration as applied to self-government in the Philippines, 
was afterwards used as a text by speakers elsewhere. I now 
entered upon the general campaign with zeal, speaking in many 
parts of the country, from Maine to the Mississippi. I insisted 



io8 POLITICAL ACTIVITIES 

that the Republicans had a great advantage over the Democrats 
in the fact that the former could show the results of experience, 
while the latter could offer nothing but promises and prophecies, 
and Mr. Bryan's former prophecies of the calamities that would 
follow the maintenance of the gold standard had already been 
discredited. 

Indeed, the outcome could hardly be in doubt. McKinley 
and Roosevelt were elected by an overwhelming majority. 

Then followed the tragedy at Buffalo, and Roosevelt succeeded 
to the Presidency. Within a few weeks thereafter I was called 
to Washington as Civil Service Commissioner. My high opinion 
of the ability and character of the new President was more than 
confirmed by the close association I had with him while holding 
that office. 



CHAPTER VII 
LIFE IN WASHINGTON 

Rich, opalescent memories that fill 
The spirit's eye at each new turn of thought, 
With some fresh tint of beauty — fair emprize. 
And joy of life and high companionship. 

In October of 1901 I moved with my family to Washington 
to take my place as one of the members of the Civil Sci vice Com- 
mission, where I held a position which, for nearly six years had 
been filled by Mr. Roosevelt himself.' 

Washington life and Washington society were full of charm at 
this, their most brilliant period, and I treasure the liveliest recol- 
lections of the many delightful acquaintances and warm friends 
I made during my official life, but far more than anything else 
do I prize my close association with the President. 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

I had known Mr. Roosevelt for some twelve years, having met 
him and spoken with him at various meetings of the friends of 
Civil Service Reform. He had been appointed Civil Service Com- 
missioner by President Harrison, and I saw him often in Wash- 
ington in 1890 and 1891, where as chairman of a special com- 
mittee of the National Civil Service Reform League I was con- 
ducting an investigation into various departments of the govern- 
ment under the Harrison administration. Roosevelt himself was 
much disappointed with Harrison for his refusal to extend the 
competitive system to the Census Bureau, which the Commission 
had recommended, as well as on account of his failures to enforce 
the law. Governor Thompson, of South Carolina, was also a 
member of the Commission, and we three used frequently to 

1 The circumstances leading to this appointment and the work accom- 
plished by the Commission are set forth in "Fighting the Spoilsmen," 
Putnam's, 1919. 

109 



no LIFE IN WASHINGTON 

lunch together at the "Losekam," a restaurant on F Street, and 
the two Commissioners sometimes came to see me at my rooms on 
Fifteenth Street. 

One Sunday we happened to spend the afternoon there in social 
conversation, but the fact that we were together came to the 
notice of the correspondent of the New York World, who had his 
rooms on the floor above. That was quite enough, and he sent 
to his paper a thrilling account of the two Commissioners ap- 
pointed by President Harrison devoting their Sunday afternoon 
to a conspiracy with a Civil Service reformer from the outside, 
against the administration under which they were serving! 

I used to dine with Mr. Roosevelt quite frequently in the little 
house on a side street near Connecticut Avenue, where he and 
Mrs. Roosevelt were bringing up their family. He was the most 
hospitable of men and one met interesting guests at his table. 
Speaker Reed, Henry Cabot Lodge, and others. 

Reed was one of the most genial souls that ever enlivened a 
company. He talked with dry sarcasm about "the merit system," 
a phrase which he pronounced with peculiar unction, but we 
always had a friend in him when we wanted something done. 

Lodge was also a supporter of the competitive system and 
anxious to extend it whenever practicable, but he was criticised 
and bitterly attacked by many of the Mugwumps, especially in 
Massachusetts, because he still distributed the unclassified places 
as patronage. He said very frankly that he would do all he could 
to remove them from the spoils system, but that while they were 
there he proposed to make the best use of them he could. When- 
ever we wanted to accomplish anything, Lodge was always able 
to get more done and in a shorter time than any other man in 
Congress. 

Sometimes Mr. Roosevelt and I would row together up the Po- 
tomac to the Chain Bridge, and I remember one of these occasions 
when he was speaking of the difficulty which people in various 
ranks of life and in various parts of the great country had in 
understanding each other. "The man in the New York smart 
set," he said, "finds it hard to realise that a planter in some 
remote section of the South may be quite as perfect a gentleman 
as he is himself, and the Southerner, on the other hand, finds it 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT in 

hard to understand how a man born and reared in the lap of 
luxury in New York may have just as much personal courage as 
he has. In the same way the man in New England and the man 
in the Far West cannot appreciate each other's good qualities. 
I am glad I have had opportunities of seeing all sorts of people 
in all parts of the country, and in spite of the fact that I was 
brought up in the East, the kind of life I enjoy most is that out 
on the ranch, where the cook sits at the table with me." This 
feeling found its expression afterwards when he organised the 
Rough Riders. 

He knew more kinds of men than any other person in America, 
and when he became President this served him in good stead. He 
was able to pick the particular man he needed for special work 
better than any Chief Executive we have ever had. 

It was while Mr. Roosevelt was Civil Service Commissioner 
that Frank Hatton, editor of the Washington Post, published a 
number of charges against him and the other Commissioners, and 
these were investigated by a Congressional committee. I attended 
some of the hearings. The charges were false, and Roosevelt came 
out with flying colours, although John Wanamaker, then Post- 
master-General, had appeared as a witness against him. One 
night I was dining at the Roosevelts' when a subordinate of Wana- 
maker came to see him on business. He stepped to the front 
door to talk with this man a moment, and the last words I heard 
him say before he came back to the table were, "You may tell 
the Postmaster-General from me that I don't like him for two 
reasons. In the first place, he has a very sloppy mind, and, in 
the next place, he doesn't speak the truth." 

After Mr. Roosevelt's six years on the Civil Service Commis- 
sion, I saw but little of him, until, on his return from Cuba, 
he became a candidate for the Governorship of New York. There 
was one curious feature of this campaign. Some of the New York 
Independents who had organised a Citizens' League wanted Mr. 
Roosevelt to become a candidate under their auspices. He was 
not willing to promise to do this, and afterwards, when he became 
the nominee of the regular Republican organisation, they vio- 
lently opposed him and nominated a candidate of their own, 
who, however, received only a few hundred votes. Among the 



112 LIFE IN WASHINGTON 

leaders of this movement was Mr, John Jay Chapman. City 
and State, an independent newspaper in Philadelphia edited by 
Herbert Welsh, with whom I had been associated in the National 
Civil Service Reform League, criticised Roosevelt with some bit- 
terness. I was disgusted at the action of this small coterie, and 
on November 23d, 1898, I wrote the following letter: 

My Dear Mr. Roosevelt: 

I have just been East and have expressed to a number of so-called 
reformers, vi^ho worked against your election a few of my ideas in 
regard to the character of their opposition. I saw J. J. Chapman 
and congratulated him upon the organisation of his small and select 
party and admired the logic of the men who, by nominating you, ex- 
pressed their conviction that you were the best man for the place, and 
then did all they could to beat you because you would not wear their 
collar, I had a very earnest talk with Herbert Welsh, told him I 
thought the course of City and State toward you was injurious to re- 
form, that its criticisms of you were trifling, and that such folly made 
men love Croker. Welsh told me that one reason the paper took the 
attitude it did toward you was on account of the fact that you had 
agreed not to decline the nomination of the Citizens' League (or what- 
ever they call it) and then had finally declined it, and that Colonel 
Waring had written to you after your declination saying that he had 
always considered you a man of honour. I asked Welsh whether 
he had heard your side of that story, and he admitted that he had not, 
but showed me some copies of letters which were said to have been 
written to you during the early part of the negotiations. I would not 
mention this matter at all but for the fact that it comes from a man 
who is so earnest and sincere in all that he does that I thought you 
ought to know about it, and I am sure he would not object to my 
asking you how the matter really stands. My only wonder is that he 
did not do it himself. His approving quotation from Parkhurst in 
last week's City and State, saying that the New York election was 
Piatt's victory more than yours fills me with great disgust. 

To this Mr. Roosevelt replied: 

My Dear Foulke: 

Your letter really pleased me. The attitude of you and Swift and 
Bonaparte and some others gave me real satisfaction. The attitude of 
the bulk of our associates did not much surprise me, but it gave an 
illustration of why it is that they so rarely accomplish good results 
and filled me with gratitude for having myself kept within party lines. 

Now you are very welcome to show this letter to Welsh, whose hon- 



RIDES AND WALKS WITH THE PRESIDENT 113 

esty and sincerity I entirely appreciate, though what you tell me of his 
attitude, of which I was ignorant, shows that he is suffering from pro- 
longed and excessive indulgence in the Evening Post, which is fatal 
to any man's usefulness. • . . 

I explained to them (the Citizens' League) with the greatest pos- 
sible minuteness that I would refuse their nomination if they asked 
for an answer, and that all I would do was to reserve the right of 
accepting or rejecting it. They then issued an address, of which I 
did not get a copy, and I was informed that it contained (by implica- 
tion, at least) the statement that I would accept. I expressed my dis- 
satisfaction with this, whereupon one of their number showed me a 
copy of the address, and another wrote me a letter enclosing a copy. 
It was marked at a point running, "We do not know whether he will 
be a candidate or not." This was entirely satisfactory, and I at once 
said so and wrote back, "The address is all right," of course referring 
to the fact that the address pledged me to nothing. They actually tried 
to insist later that I thereby pledged myself to the principles of the 
address, which contained a violent assault on the Republican Party, an 
assault to which neither they nor I ever dreamt for a moment that 
I would subscribe. . . . 

It was a satisfactory thing to beat at the same time, Blifil and Black 
George, and I was delighted to overthrow Croker and Carl Schurz, 
Dr. Parkhurst and Chief Devery, Godkin, Ottendorfer, Pulitzer and 
Hearst : the most corrupt politicians within the Republican ranks, the 
silly "Goo-Goos" and the extraordinarily powerful machine of Tam- 
many Hall. The great corporations also raised a gigantic corruption 
fund on behalf of my opponents. 

Faithfully yours, 

Theodore Roosevelt. 

During McKinley's administration I conferred with Mr, Roose- 
velt a number of times in regard to the President's violations of 
the Civil Service laws. He recommended McKinley to appoint me 
Civil Service Commissioner, and one of the first things he did 
in his own administration was to offer me a place on the Com- 
mission. He had discussed it with others even before he left 
Buffalo, and it was not many days afterwards that I received a 
telegram from him urging my acceptance. 

RIDES AND WALKS WITH THE PRESIDENT 

While I was Commissioner in Washington I saw a great deal 
of him both at the White House and in various walks and rides 



114 LIFE IN WASHINGTON 

around the city. Sometimes our horseback excursions were ex- 
ceedingly strenuous. Once I was riding with Mr. John R. Procter, 
the president of the Civil Service Commission, in Rock Creek Park, 
and we had just reached the top of a bluff after making a long 
circuit on the carriage road. We looked over and saw three men 
on horseback scrambling up the side of this bluff, which was there 
very steep. "Who are those madcaps?" exclaimed Procter, and a 
moment later, "Good Lord! it's the President!" He was accom- 
panied by General Young and followed by an orderly. In a few 
moments they reached the top, but there was a high fence and 
they could not get over. So they galloped down again through the 
bushes into the ravine. Then I cried out that there was a break 
in the fence further on, and up they came once more. When they 
reached the road the President called to us, "Come along," and we 
did. He galloped down the steep bank, then through gullies and 
thickets, and up the bed of a stream, everywhere at full speed, 
then across a green field and over a fence. Luckily there was an 
open gate close to the place where he leaped. I looked to see 
what General Young would do. He took the gate, and Procter 
and I followed. 

After I returned home I related the incident to Miller, my 
coachman. Miller always took a fatherly interest in my welfare, 
and he asked, "But, Mr. Foulke, why didn't you leap the fence 
after the President?" I told him I did not know that Balder 
could jump. "But he can," said Miller, "I have taught him. If 
I may go with you some time I will show you." So we went next 
day to a wood where there was a huge log as high as a fence 
and sure enough the horse leaped it without difficulty, first with 
Miller on his back and then with me, whereupon my coachman 
exclaimed with great satisfaction, "Now you can ride anywhere 
with the President!" 

There was another occasion on which I had the opportunity to 
observe the muscular strength of the President and his readiness 
in an emergency. I was riding with a Southern lady, an excel- 
lent horsewoman, through the wooded paths of Rock Creek Park, 
and she was congratulating herself that there was nothing to mar 
the enjoyment of the ride. Blackamoor trotted well, the saddle 



RIDES AND WALKS WITH THE PRESIDENT 115 

did not turn, her hat was in no danger of falling off, and even 
the hairpins kept their places. We were just passing a tree as 
she said this, and I reached out my hand to touch wood, but 
could not do it. This must have been the portent which fore- 
shadowed what was to come. A little further on she remarked 
that she would like to see the President when he was not on 
parade, and that the only plan she could think of was to find out 
when I was riding with him, and then come up behind us, have 
her horse run away and be rescued by him. About half an hour 
after this we decided to take what seemed to be a new bridle road 
cut into the bluff on the far side of Rock Creek. It was in 
fact only a foot-path, but a solid bridge had just been con- 
structed, and the way looked broad, well-made, and very inviting. 
But when we rode up to a place about twenty-five or thirty feet 
above the river, where the bluff was nearly perpendicular, we found 
that the path, which had become narrower and narrower, was at 
last only a few inches wide, until upon turning a sharp corner 
we came suddenly upon a spot where two logs spanned a small 
chasm. My companion was riding ahead, but she could neither 
turn nor dismount, so she urged her horse across the logs. The 
animal, however, after starting, refused to go further, became 
frightened, and fell over backward down to the creek, at least 
twenty-five feet, landing on his side, partly on top of my 
companion. She cried out to me that she was not hurt; but a 
moment later, while I was rushing down to her, she asked me to 
get the horse off her leg. Before I reached her he had started 
away into the stream. She at first tried to scramble up the 
bank, but could not, and said she must rest a while and that 
I should go after the horse. I plunged into the river in pursuit, 
but could not catch him for some time. At last I secured 
and tied him and then waded back across the creek to my 
companion, who had by this time scrambled on her hands 
and knees up to the path. Two policemen were now seen ap- 
proaching; one of them, an old fellow, made a cheerful begin- 
ning by telling us that we ought to have had better sense than 
to take that path. He helped us, however, by slowly backing 
the horse I had been riding down the narrow path, while the 



ii6 LIFE IN WASHINGTON 

other policeman went for my companion's horse across the stream. 
Soon we had a "round up" with Gifford Pinchot, General Crozier, 
and a lot of policemen, at Pierce's Mill, not far away. 

We were discussing how to get back home, as my companion 
was badly bruised, when suddenly the President, at the head of 
some other horsemen, dashed up to the party and asked what was 
the matter. I introduced the lady and told him what had hap- 
pened. He leaped to the ground and at once took command. He 
asked her if she could ride home. She said she could if once on 
the horse, but that she could not mount. He then took her by the 
waist and lifted her by main force, almost at arm's length, up to 
the saddle, helped her pull off one of her boots, which was hurting 
her, jumped on his own horse and rode away. We returned to 
the city without difficulty and although she had received a good 
many bruises and a slight cut in the back of her head, she enter- 
tained guests at dinner the same evening. 

With that extraordinary accuracy which characterises modern 
journalism, there appeared in a Washington paper next morning 
the following account of the incident, entitled: "President to the 
Rescue. Goes to Aid of a Lady Thrown While Riding": 

President Roosevelt was riding in Rock Creek Park late yesterday 
afternoon when he witnessed an accident to a lady and gallantly went 
to her assistance. She had been thrown from her horse and lay for 
a moment unconscious in the roadway until the President dashed up 
and dismounted and went to her aid. 

The President was accompanied only by his orderly. He was just 
rounding a turn in the Rock Creek drive when the lady coming from 
the opposite direction was thrown. Her horse, stepping into a slight 
hole, stumbled, and despite her riding skill she was unseated and 
thrown heavily over the animal's head. The President leaped from his 
mount without even reining in, and was at her side before either his 
orderly or her escort could turn and reach the spot. President Roose- 
velt assisted her to her feet while his orderly went in pursuit of her 
horse. 

We were lunching together one day, five of us, at the White 
House. Two of the party, we were told, were going to take a 
walk with the President that afternoon. He asked the rest of 
us the question: "Are you fond of walking? Wouldn't you like 



RIDES AND WALKS WITH THE PRESIDENT 117 

to join us?" We answered that we should be glad to go. Two 
carriages were ordered to take us to the starting-place. The first 
vague indication that there was trouble ahead came when the 
President stood by the door as we passed out of the dining-room, 
observed our apparel, and directed one of us, who was very well 
dressed, to go home and change his clothes. The carriages came, 
and we drove to the Chain Bridge, three miles above George- 
town, on the Potomac, There we crossed over to the Virginia 
side. Two of the party had brought canes. The President no- 
ticed it. "You had better leave your canes in the carriage," 
he said, "you may not be able to keep them with you." This 
sounded ominous. 

About a quarter of a mile below us, at the side of the river, 
there was a big stone quarry, and just as we were starting from 
the bridge there was a furious explosion, and rocks were seen 
flying like hailstones, some of them clear across the river, others 
splashing into the stream. The President's face was lit with glee. 
"Aha!" he exclaimed. "We are going right there." Somehow 
his joy was not contagious. Nobody answered. Soon we reached 
the quarry. Just beyond it there was what seemed to be an 
impassable barrier of rock overhanging the river, but before we 
came to this the President pointed out a place at the side, nearly 
perpendicular, about three or four hundred feet high, where it 
was possible, by scrambling over stones and bushes, to get up to 
the woods at the top of the bluff. He said, "If you can't pass 
the rocks, you can go up there," as if that were a great relief! 
When we came to the point of rocks it was evident enough why 
the canes had to be left behind. The President started ahead, 
followed by his son Theodore; he scrambled up a steep, smooth 
rock to a shoulder about fifty feet above the river, and then along 
a crack in a perpendicular cliff, holding on by another crack about 
seven or eight feet above the first one, and at last getting down — 
I don't know how. I quickly saw the thing was impossible for 
me. I had been up Popocatepetl and Toluca and other Mexican 
volcanoes, and had done a good deal of scrambling among the 
Alps, but this was too much. A negro close by pointed out a 
boat, and after much yelling the boat came and two of us igno- 
miniously took passage and were rowed around, while young 



ii8 LIFE IN WASHINGTON 

Roosevelt and two others succeeded in following the President. 
Then it was a furious tramp, up and down, round another ledge 
not quite so impossible, where we crawled on our hands and stom- 
achs, on and on, until all of us, except one thin Scotchman, were 
as red as boiled lobsters and as wet as if we had been in a 
Russian bath. After a while I gave out and had to stop and 
rest, and one of the party thanked me as we came home in the 
cars from Georgetown, because he said he could not have stood 
it five minutes longer. I believed that was true, for his face 
looked like raw beef. The man who had changed his clothes 
didn't change them quite enough, for he still had on a pair of 
new trousers, which were now covered with a fine plaster of mud 
nearly to the knees. 

All this time the President was enjoying himself like a school- 
boy. He climbed another steep place, almost inaccessible, after 
wild flowers for Mrs. Roosevelt. The birds, the flowers, the still, 
shady places in the woods, the cascades that tumbled do-wn the 
bluff, gave him the keenest delight. The rest of us would have 
enjoyed these things too if we had not been fagged out. One of 
us said to him, remembering the words of Dooley, "Do ye call 
this a waalk, Mr. Prisident? Sure I thought it was capital pun- 
ishment." After it was over and we had crossed the river to 
Georgetown, he told us to take the street-car back to Washington 
while he walked home with his son. 

When I reached the door of my little house on New Hamp- 
shire Avenue, the servants were filled with consternation at my 
appearance. The cook showed the keenest sympathy ; Miller, the 
coachman, charitably offered to rub me down. I declined the 
proffered assistance, however, and after a bath thought I would 
take a short nap before dinner. I did so and awoke next m.orning 
at half-past five! 

The President had been a Matterhorn climber and a member 
of the Alpine Club, but it requires genius to find Matterhorn 
climbing within five miles of Washington. 

I was once riding with him when he gave a humorous account 
of the Battle of Las Guasimas, his first engagement in Cuba. He 
said: "My regiment was marching through thick woods. We 
could see nothing and did not know who were on the right or on 



RIDES AND WALKS WITH THE PRESIDENT 119 

the left. We heard firing and marched that way. At last we saw 
a house and we fired at that, mainly because it was not a tree. 
We learned afterwards that we had killed quite a number of 
Spaniards. Finally some of the officers came together and one 
of them congratulated me upon the victory. I didn't know 
there had been a victory, and I was very glad to hear it." 

Once I met the President riding on one of the country roads 
with Mrs. Roosevelt and Secretary Root. Some distance behind 
was an orderly, and still further back was an ill-dressed fat man 
on a bicycle, puffing and blowing at a great rate to keep up. I 
did not feel quite sure whether the fat man belonged to the 
Secret Service or to the anarchists or was attending very hard 
to some business of his own, but about half an hour afterwards 
in Rock Creek Park I met the President returning, followed by 
the same orderly, and some distance behind was the fat man on 
the bicycle. Then the riders went up a long hill at a good pace. 
The fat man had fearful work keeping up and looked as if he 
would have apoplexy. At the top of the hill the streets forked; 
the President and his party took one way, followed by the or- 
derly, and the fat man on the bicycle took the other. "Well," I 
thought, "perhaps I am mistaken about the Secret Service, or per- 
haps the man thinks his duty is finished." I followed the Presi- 
dent at some distance when suddenly, tearing in from a side street 
at a furious rate, came the fat man on the bicycle. He had taken 
all that extra trouble to keep up the mystery and to show that 
he was not following the President. I told the President about 
this afterwards. He showed considerable interest and some annoy- 
ance and said he had not the slightest idea that any one was fol- 
lowing him, adding: "I'll stop this right away." I saw at once 
I had made a mistake in telling him anything about it. 

A few days afterwards Mr. Cortelyou, his secretary, said to me, 
"I am having an awful time with the President about these Secret 
Service men. I order them on, and he orders them off. and I 
order them on again, and then there is trouble. I will obey him 
in anything but this." 



120 LIFE IN WASHINGTON 



OTHER PERSONAL INCIDENTS 



The President was always full of the exhilaration of unbounded 
vitality. One day he said, 'Toulke, this is pretty hard work 
being President, but I am having a good time of it." The attacks 
upon him sometimes aroused his ire, but did not in the least 
disturb his cheerfulness. 

One day he said to me, "I am having a great deal of trouble 
with the agnostics." Procter, who was present, said, "What 
trouble are they giving you?" And he replied, "Oh, they 
are not giving me any trouble, it is the other fellows. I 
receive violent protests from clergymen, asking whether I intend 
'to insult this Christian community' by the appointment of people 
having such views, Down at El Paso, for instance, I appointed 
a man who had killed three men. Nobody objected to him on that 
ground, but when they found that he didn't believe what he ought 
to, then I had trouble. In El Paso the people are homicidal but 
orthodox." 

I had been present when the particular man referred to was 
appointed, and I well remember the incident. "How many men 
have you killed?" asked the President. 

"Three," said the applicant. 

"How did you come to do it?" said the President. 

*'In the discharge of my duty as a public officer." 

The President seemed pleased. "Have you ever played poker?" 
asked the President. 

"Yes," said the man. 

"Are you going to do it when you are in office?" said the Presi- 
dent. 

"No," said the man. 

"All right, I am going to appoint you, but see to it that you 
observe the Civil Service law. I had to dismiss your predecessor 
because he violated it, and I'll do the same to you if you don't 
keep it. Here is one of the Civil Service Commissioners; go down 
and see him and he will tell you what you ought to do." 

The man departed, filled with joy, and came to the Commission 
an hour afterwards to receive instructions. 

It is hard for one who has not had pretty close relations with 



.OTHER PERSONAL INCIDENTS I2i 

the White House to understand the constant stream, not only of 
solicitations for personal favour, but of testimonials of regard, 
presents of various kinds, canes, specimens, articles of personal 
adornment and household use, appropriate and inappropriate, usu- 
ally the latter, which pour in upon the Chief Executive. He must 
always be gracious, however ill-timed the gift. Authors send their 
books and politicians their speeches. 

One such politician entrusted to my hands an autographed copy 
of an address which he asked me to deliver personally to the 
President. Mr. Roosevelt was at that time an exile from the 
White House, which was undergoing repairs, and lived in a pri- 
vate dwelling on the west side of La Fayette Square in rather 
crowded quarters. We had just been dining together, there was 
only one other guest, and as we were withdrawing through the 
hall I presented the precious token. He received it and said, "I'll 
get Loeb to acknowledge it to-morrow," and then, setting his teeth 
together grimly and firmly, he added, "I'll make him read it too." 

One day at lunch a number of us were talking of a certain 
public man, and some one remarked that to him this man was 
extremely antipathetic. Upon which the President said, "That 
reminds me of King Bomba of Naples. The king was riding 
across the Campagna with one of his courtiers, when suddenly 
a Roman bull made his appearance. The king leaped from his 
horse and with great speed climbed a tree. His companion kept 
his place in the saddle, and the animal approached, but paid no 
attention to the horses or the remaining rider and passed on. 
After he had gone a safe distance the king descended and re- 
mounted, with the remark, 'Quest' animale mi k. molto antipatico. 
Se fosse leonel' " (This animal is very antipathetic to me. If it 
had been a lion!) 

No one whom Mr. Roosevelt knew to be a steadfast friend 
had cause to shrink from telling him disagreeable things. I used 
to tell him many things of this sort, and he always took it in good 
part, as he did when I occasionally criticised what I thought were 
his mistakes. I once told him he had put too many men in the 
Ananias Club, that "the little ugly word" ought to be reserved 
for supreme occasions and that it lost much of its force when 
applied too often. He answered, "I believe that's true. I'll have 



122 LIFE IN WASHINGTON 

to keep the membership down." But he did not do it. When 
some one told a "whopper," and he knew it, he couldn't help 
putting that man in. 

Another time I had better luck with my advice, though in this 
case the criticism did not concern himself. One of his Cabinet 
officers had been making a speech which seemed to me foolish 
and likely to lead to embarrassment if repeated and kept before 
the public. When I called the President's attention to this, he 
replied, "You're quite right. I'll write to him at once," and 

immediately he dictated to his stenographer, "My dear : I 

have just read your speech at . It was a mistake, and I 

hope in your next speech you will correct it." 

"But," I interposed, "won't that give prominence to it? 
Wouldn't it be better to ask him not to repeat it?" 

"You're right again," he said, and then, to the stenographer, 
"Strike out the last sentence, and say *I hope you'll not refer to 
that subject hereafter'," and thus the letter went. Mr. Roose- 
velt was willing to change his course in an instant if a suggestion 
was made to him which appealed to his own judgment. But it 
must be his judgment and not that of his adviser which decided. 

And his judgment rarely erred, unless it were in cases where 
his means of knowledge could not be as complete as that of others. 
If there were any classes of appointments in which he fell a little 
short of his very high average I should say they were those in 
which a thorough knowledge of some technical profession, like 
that of the law, was necessary for the best selection. I remem- 
ber once the question of appointing a judge was before him, 
and the choice lay between two men. He inclined to favour one 
of these, whereupon the three lawyer members of his Cabinet, 
Secretaries Root and Taft and Attorney- General Knox, sent him 
a "round robin" (after his own example in Cuba) remonstrating 
against this and urging the other man. I told him I thought the 
opinion of three such lawyers was likely to be more correct than 
his own as to the qualifications of an applicant for a judicial 
position. 

Near the end of his second term. Congressmen, feeling them- 
selves safe because his power was nearing its close, began to be 
more bold and bitter in their attacks. In answer to a message 



OTHER PERSONAL INCIDENTS 123 

which had criticised certain acts of Congress, a resolution was 
introduced denouncing him for accusing the representatives of 
the people of corruption. The day this occurred I happened 
to be at the White House and observed that the demand of Dog- 
berry to be written down an ass, seemed to me pale and colourless 
by the side of the insistence of Congress that it was accused of cor- 
ruption from words which did not of themselves involve any such 
construction. He laughed heartily, and it appeared in the news- 
papers next day that I had accused Congress of being worse 
than Dogberry, which greatly shocked some of the staid Wash- 
ington people who were imbued with reverence for authority. But 
I never heard that the President was annoyed at it. 

The Sunday evenings spent at the White House with the Presi- 
dent and Mrs. Roosevelt were always especially enjoyable. Proc- 
ter was often there and Gifford Pinchot and sometimes Secretary 
Hay. This was almost the only time when the President was 
sufficiently alone to give any opportunity for private conversation 
with him. IMrs. Foulke or one of my daughters generally accom- 
panied me. 

I recall one Sunday in October, 1903, after I had ceased to be 
Commissioner, when I spent the evening there with my eldest 
daughter. There were no other guests. The President was talk- 
ing of the failure of the Panama Canal Treaty in the Congress at 
Bogota. He said the refusal to ratify the treaty was a mere 
effort to blackmail the French stockholders with the threat to 
confiscate their interests when the term of their concession should 
expire. He insisted that nobody in that Congress could see how 
it was possible for any one to be actuated in this matter by other 
than venal motives; that the men who opposed the treaty be- 
lieved that all its supporters must have been bought, so that 
finally these supporters had to come around to the other side on 
account of the suspicion against them. He said the action of 
such a body as this could not stand in the way of a great inter- 
national necessity like the Panama Canal; that he should state 
in a message he was preparing that he would construe "reasonable 
time," on a question of this importance agitated for hundreds of 
years, as the time which was necessary for deciding fully which 
was the better route: that of Nicaragua or that of Panama; and 



124 LIFE IN WASHINGTON 

if that proved to be the Panama route, he would say in decorous 
language that the Columbian Congress should not so stand in the 
way. Then if the French Company had any gumption at all 
(which he doubted) there would soon be an insurrection in Pan- 
ama. He was, he said, like the doctor who burned every wound 
or sore given him to heal, because he was "hell on burns." So he 
(the President) was Hades on insurrections and could prevent 
anybody from interfering. 

1 laughingly told him that for Machiavellian diplomacy he was 
as bad as a Russian; that people would be calling Panama our 
Bulgaria. He said "No," that if he were like the Russians and 
without any conscience he would be stirring up an insurrection 
himself, but that he had not done so and would not do so. I 
asked him if he didn't feel that he was becoming the advocate of 
secession. He smiled and said "No, only of the right of resistance 
to grinding oppression," and he added that he was the friend of 
liberty." 

2 This was not mere pleasantry, for Panama, once independent, had 
been most unfortunately annexed to Colombia, from which its interests 
were utterly distinct. "The Isthmus was looked upon as a financial 
cow to be milked for the benefit of the country^ at large." The revenues 
of the Panama Railroad had gone mostly into the pockets of the states- 
men of Bogota, who now saw in the canal project a prospect of great 
additional profit. 

Colombia was at this time under a dictatorship. In 1898 San 
Clamente was elected president and Marroquin vice-president. On 
July 2ist, 1900, Marroquin executed a coup d'etat by seizing San 
Clamente and imprisoning him a few miles out of Bogota. Mar- 
roquin thereupon declared himself possessed of executive power, 
because of the "absence of the President," and issuing a decree 
that "public order was disturbed," he also assumed legislative power. 
He thus ruled as a dictator. The Constitution of 1886 had already 
taken from Panama the power of self-government and invested 
it in Colombia, and the usurpation of Marroquin took away from 
Colombia the power of government and invested it in himself. He 
directed Mr. Herran, the Colombian charge d'affaires, to negotiate with 
Mr. Hay the Hay-Herran treaty, giving Colombia ten million dollars 
and an annual bonus of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars after 
nine years. But now, having this much and thinking he had the mat- 
ter in his own hands, he determined to get more and to break the 
treaty he had just made by summoning a Congress. There had been 



OTHER PERSONAL INCIDENTS 125 

He then began to speak of Manchuria. He did not believe the 
Russians intended to evacuate it, but did not see what he could 
do in the matter. He did not think the American people were 
prepared to use force to drive the Russians out. Even England 
would not join in this effort, though Japan would. He thought 
it would be a large job, and that while we were about it, we might 
find a nice German colony comfortably established in Brazil. In 
reply to the question whether it would be possible for several of 
the great powers to guarantee the independence of China, he said 
that England and Japan might join in this, but France, Russia 
and even Germany would all oppose it. "The German Emperor," 
he added, "is a curious man. He sent 'Specky' (Speck von Stern- 
berg) to talk confidentially with me, and wanted me to guarantee 
the Yangtze Valley from foreign interference. I said I should 

no Congress convened for four years. This body was composed of his 
puppets, who determined to extort more money, and who demanded 
of the Panama Canal Company ten millions additional for allowing 
it to sell its rights to the United States. When the Canal Company 
refused, the Canal Committee of the Colombian Senate proposed, on 
October 14, 1903, that the matter should be postponed for a year, be- 
cause by that time the term would expire within which the French 
Company was to build the canal, and the Colombian Congress could 
declare forfeited its property and rights and secure the forty millions 
our Government had agreed to pay to that company. 

Of course the people of Panama felt outraged at such a disregard 
of their interests. They had long been misgoverned and neglected. As 
one of them described it, 'Notwithstanding all that Colombia has 
drained us of in the way of revenues, she did not bridge for us a 
single river, nor make a single roadway, nor erect a single college, 
where our children could be educated, nor do anything at all to advance 
our industries." 

So great was their resentment at Colombia that there had been fifty- 
three revolutions and other disturbances in as many years ; four of 
these had occurred within two j'cars of the events we are describing 
(between October, 1899, and September, 1901). Now at last, at the 
instigation of Bunau Varilla, who had been connected with the old 
Canal Company, they organised the final revolution by which their 
independence was secured. 

Even had the world-wide necessity of an inter-oceanic canal not 
been at stake, the President would have been justified in recognising 
the independence of Panama, which was demanded with practical 



126 LIFE IN WASHINGTON 

like to guarantee all China from foreign interference, but he 
didn't want that. The idea was to let Russia and Germany have 
a free hand, and then keep England from doing anything." 

The President also spoke of Count Cassini, the Russian Ambas- 
sador, as a representative of Russian diplomatic methods. Cas- 
sini had made certain definite statements to Mr. Hay as to some 
Manchurian matter; a few days afterwards he had made state- 
ments to the Associated Press quite contradictory to what he told 
Hay, and afterwards, in Paris, he made a third statement denying 
that he had made either of the other two. Comparing them, it 
necessarily appeared that at least two out of the three statements 
must have been untrue, but in point of fact all three were untrue ; 
yet Cassini did not seem to have the slightest conception that he 
had done anything improper. 



unanimity by all its people. As Charles J. Bonaparte well said in a 
letter to the Springfield Republican, published on August 30, 1904 : 

"I think he did right because I think that Louis XVI did right in 
recognising the independence of the revolted American colonies; that 
England, France, and Russia did right in recognising the independence 
of Greece and liberating its territory from Turks and Egyptians; that 
England and France did right in recognising the independence of 
Belgium and compelling its evacuation by the Dutch. I think he did 
right in securing for the people of Panama a government of their 
choice, and with it peace and good order and the hope of vast improve- 
ment in their moral, educational, sanitary, and commercial conditions 
in the near future, in the place of a government detested by all classes 
of the population, illegal in its origin, maintained by force, corrupt, 
oppressive and wholly neglectful of its duties." 

If the President had not intervened as he did, not only would the 
work on the Canal have been indefinitely postponed, but the people of 
the Isthmus would have been relegated to a civil war with the accom- 
paniments of massacre, pillage, and every form of barbarity. The 
other leading nations of the world followed us in recognising the 
independence of Panama ; a subsequent treaty with that republic was 
confirmed by an overwhelming vote in the Senate, and the President, 
who accomplished this work of general beneficence to the whole world, 
was soon afterwards elected by our people by the greatest majority 
ever cast, up to that time, for a Chief Executive. There can be no 
doubt as to the ratification of his act by the country, and even his 
critics have not proposed a restoration to Colombia of the Canal Zone. 



ROOSEVELT CHARACTERISTICS 127 

ROOSEVELT CHARACTERISTICS 

Theodore Roosevelt had the power of securing the devotion of 
his followers more completely than any other man of his time. 
I have felt this very forcibly in my own case. I am generally 
none too ready to follow the leadership of another. The mere 
fact that authority is claimed arouses a certain spirit of resist- 
ance. But I never had the least particle of that feeling toward 
Roosevelt. It seemed so natural and inevitable that he should 
lead in the great things he was undertaking that it was always a 
delight to follow. He gave >ou so fully the idea of co-operation 
in his leadership that the notion of mere subordination disap- 
peared. He was a king by diviner right than that of any reigning 
monarch in the world — by the right of his supreme ability to com- 
mand. I quite concur in the estimate of him once expressed to me 
by Oscar S. Straus, who had been in his Cabinet: that in view 
of his wide attainments, his prodigious activities, and his power 
to control those who were around him, he was more nearly a 
superman than any other character with whom we were ac- 
quainted. But it was not merely devotion that I always 
felt for him; it was an abiding affection. I cared for him more 
than for any man outside of my own family, and I do not doubt 
that many thousands of Americans could say the same thing. This 
was not a question of mere personal charm, though he had that 
in a pre-eminent degree; it depended even more upon our reliance 
upon the character that lay beneath his personality, his intense 
patriotism, and his lofty aims. His friends were not hypno- 
tised, but under their enthusiasms lay a profound conviction 
of the supreme qualities which Roosevelt undoubtedly pos- 
sessed. 

But if he bound his friends to him by the most indissoluble cords 
of affection, he aroused his enemies to the highest pitch of rage 
and hate. I had a masseur who told me that the heart of one 
of his patients always started violently at the mere mention of 
Roosevelt's name. 

His sympathy and friendship for the common people must have 
impressed every one who knew him. Most men with strong demo- 
cratic instincts have no other choice; they themselves belong to 



128 LIFE IN WASHINGTON 

the multitude. But here was a man of aristocratic lineage and 
antecedents, who was naturally fond of the plain people, who 
respected them and liked them quite as much as those of 
his own class. Indeed, the people of the West regarded 
him, and I think correctly, as more their own than did 
the people of the East. The policeman, the locomotive en- 
gineer, the cowboy, the mountain guide, had often a closer sym- 
pathy with him than had the members of the exclusive social 
circle in which he was born and bred, and this feeling of fellow- 
ship had not the least taint of cant or political motive behind it. 
He was naturally fond of men, of good men, whether they spoke 
pure English or not; of strong men, even if their hands were hard 
and grimy. 

Some who did not know the President found it hard to realise 
from the fierce-looking portraits of him and from his stern denun- 
ciation of the unworthy that he was constantly bubbling over 
with kindness as well as with the joy of living. His affection for 
his family was unbounded. It was a delight, if one went to the 
White House a little before dinner time, to hear the racket going 
on above, where he was romping with the children, or the thump- 
ing on the stairs, as they came down three or four steps at a 
time. At the table he was constantly filled wiih merriment and 
kept his guests in roars of laughter. He had the keenest pos- 
sible sense of humour; of the thousand absurdities which took 
place in his presence not one escaped his penetrating observa- 
tion. He could enjoy a joke upon himself quite as well as a joke 
upon any one else, and his friends were not in the least afraid 
of the most absolute candour in talking to him. 

When he talked about himself and his own course, as he often 
did, it was in the most impersonal way, as if it were quite an- 
other man whose conduct was being brought up for review. After 
his work was over he was fond of play, but I never knew a man 
who took such joy as he in the work itself; he revelled in it. He 
not only worked tremendously himself, he made everybody around 
him work in the same way. It was a remarkable thing to see him 
going over his daily correspondence, reading the letters of others, 
correcting his own, and holding a conversation upon some impor- 
tant public question at the same time, keeping up two lines of 



ROOSEVELT CHARACTERISTICS 129 

thought simultaneously and working rapidly at both of them. 
He could think like lightning, and many of the sudden decisions 
which men attributed to rash impulsiveness were due to the fact 
that in a minute he had weighed considerations which for many 
men would require an hour. The promptness with which he 
answered letters was amazing. When I was on the Commission, 
if we wrote to one of the Departments we were lucky to get an 
answer within a week; if we wrote to the President we heard 
from him within twenty-four hours. He once told me that he 
did not work as many hours a day as Cleveland, but that his work 
was more intense. He did not sit up late at night going over the 
details of documents and testimony. He left this to others 
whom he trusted. He had greater facility perhaps than any man 
of his time in availing himself of the labour of skilled subordi- 
nates. Occasionally, however, he did this detail work himself. 
Once he promised to read personally the hundreds of pages of 
evidence in the Sampson-Schley controversy, and he did so, though 
much of this work was a pure waste of time. 

But although the President was a tremendous worker, he bent 
the bow backward so strongly in relaxation that he never seemed 
to become exhausted. He took this in every way possible, in 
intense physical exercise, as we have already seen, in conversation 
upon outside subjects, and in reading. He used to read some 
light literature after he went to bed, and it often put him to 
sleep. 

Once when he was hard at work settling the coal strike and was 
also suffering from an injury received when motoring in Massa- 
chusetts, he sent to Herbert Putnam, librarian of the Congres- 
sional Library, and asked for some book which could not be of the 
slightest use in reference to anything then pending. Putnam sent 
him "The Life of John Sobieski." But no book could be useless 
to Roosevelt. He began talking about it in his usual vigorous 
way, drawing a lot of pertinent political morality out of the fail- 
ures of the Poles in working together in the important crises of 
their history. 

At another time he was greatly absorbed in the study of "The 
Life of Lincoln" by Nicolay and Hay. John Hay, then Secretary 
of State, is reported to have said, "I never heard of any one read- 



I30 LIFE IN WASHINGTON 

ing my life of Lincoln from beginning to end. I once offered five 
dollars a volume to the members of my own family if they would 
read it through, but I couldn't get any readers that way. There 
is only one man I know of who did it, and he is the busiest man 
in America, the President of the United States." 

Mr. Roosevelt's mind was of a primitive type. All sophistry, 
casuistry, diplomacy, and unnecessary complexities and refine- 
ments were foreign to him. He could "think straight and see 
clear," and he sought his end by the directest road. He was 
absolutely sincere and as unselfish as any man could be who 
played the part he did in the history of the world. Some men 
used to speak of him as "erratic," "an uncertain quantity." If 
by erratic it was meant that he was not like anybody else, that 
was true; he was certainly unique, not only in his brilliant per- 
sonality, but in the almost childlike open-mindedness, which char- 
acterised his dealings with all. But as to being an uncertain 
quantity, no man in the world was any less uncertain than he. 
His conduct in any given case, if you knew all the facts, could 
be foretold more surely than that of any other man I ever knew. 
When you could say what was the right thing to do, so far as the 
right was humanly practicable, you had the answer to the prob- 
lem. He had to make this great government of ours work, and 
he made it work as well as it would work at all. 

His sense of justice was instinctive and unerring. I think his 
devotion to the Civil Service system was principally due to the 
fact that the system encouraged fair play, that under it the farm- 
er's lad and the mechanic's son, who had no one to speak for 
them, had the same opportunity in competing for the public 
service as the social or political favourite. This love of fair play 
was the thing that made him urge Southern Democrats to come 
up for the examinations, which thus brought them into the classi- 
fied service. It was this that also gave "to the honest and capable 
coloured man an even chance with the honest and capable white 
man"; and that led him to say of the negro question: "We 
are in a back eddy. I don't know how we are going to get out, 
or when. The one way I know that does not lead out is for us 
to revert to a condition of semi-slavery. That leads us further 
in, because it does not stop there." It was this notion of fair 



ROOSEVELT CHARACTERISTICS 131 

play, as well as his sympathy for the poor who would perish in 
the great cities of the East from the consequences of the coal 
strike that led him to interfere; and I can quite believe the story 
told by Jacob Riis, that, after listening to the accounts of the 
suffering which would be entailed, as well as to the warnings of 
politicians who told him that his interference would ruin his 
career, he set his face grimly and said, "Yes, I will do it. I 
suppose that ends me, but it is right, and I will do it." 

It was also that sentiment of fair play which afterwards led 
him to take ground against the exorbitant demands of the labour 
unions when he refused to permit the discharge of Miller, the 
assistant foreman of the bookbindery, because Miller did not 
belong to any union. He was absolutely consistent in both posi- 
tions. This, too, explains his declaration to the representatives of 
the labouring men who came to dine with him: "Yes, the White 
House door, while I am here, shall swing open as easily for the 
labouring man as for the capitalist, and no easier." 

It was natural that his simple way of dealing with men and 
things should be quite misunderstood by politicians, and that 
some of his Tammany adversaries in New York should call it 
the "honesty racket" and exclaim, "How well he does it!" It 
was not half so hard to do as they imagined. And yet in his 
treatment of political bosses like Piatt and Quay, he never refused 
to confer freely with the men whom the people had chosen as 
their representatives, or to maintain friendly relations with them; 
it was only when they sought something which he thought ought 
not to be done that he stood in their way. 

When Roosevelt returned from his African trip a remarkable 
ovation was given him on his arrival in New York, and he was 
undoubtedly the most popular man in America, and probably in 
the world. But when he again undertook the work of reform in 
favour of open primaries and other needed changes to prevent 
the unwholesome manipulation of political parties, he began to 
arouse enmities on all sides, and it was only a few months before 
every one seemed to be carping at all that he did. 

Gossip was particularly venomous in Washington in the winter 
of 1910 and 191 1, and from this place I addressed him the fol- 
lowing letter: 



132 LIFE IN WASHINGTON 

Dec. 23d, 1910. 
My Dear Col. Roosevelt: 

Mrs. Foulke and I have been spending some three weeks here in 
Washington. Nearly everybody seems to be snarHng and snapping 
at your heels, including some of your former appointees and those 
who have been pretty close to you. There are gossips galore. "I 
have always been very fond of him but" — and here follows an assort- 
ment of cock-and-bull stories that "doth allay the good precedence" 
and would adorn a daily record of Bedlam. Last night at a dinner 
I had a running fight for two hours with half a dozen of them, and 
so it goes from day to day. I must say the sudden revulsion of feel- 
ing with Dewey and with yourself gives me a worse opinion of 
American constancy than I like to have. But one can't argue with 
absolute unreason, and the thing is to wait till the tide starts the 
other way and catch it then. 

In contrast, however, to this mimusical chorus is the word of the 
Japanese ambassador, Baron Uchida, whose wife was a classmate of 
my daughter and is Mrs. Foulke's intimate friend. He mentioned his 
pleasure at meeting you when you came to the Geographical Society 
and spoke words of earnest, and, I think, sincere, appreciation of your 
friendship for Japan. 

To this he answered: 

January 2, 191 1. 

I was amused and interested in your account of the snarling at me 
in Washington. As a matter of fact I think it is fairly universal. I 
was quite prepared for it. After the reception on my return last 
June I told my sister, Mrs. Robinson, that though I appreciated en- 
tirely the purpose of those who arranged the reception, I could not 
help feeling a little uncomfortable over it because the greeting was 
slightly hysterical, and there always comes a revulsion after hysteria. 
To use another simile I then used, I was like Peary at the North Pole, 
and any way I walked I could not help walking South. 

You say it has altered your opinion of the American people. It has 
not altered mine the least little bit. I always knew that such a revulsion 
was bound to come, and the fact of its coming does not change the 
great debt of obligation I am under to the people. After all, no 
matter what they say now, they for twelve years gave me a position 
of power and influence such as only four or five other men in the 
history of the country have had. The present feeling may wear itself 
out, or it may not. If it does, and I regain any influence and can use 
it to good purpose, I shall be glad; and if it does not, I shall be 
exceedingly happy here in my own home, doing my own work, without 
a regret of any kind, and really on the whole having as thoroughly 



ROOSEVELT CHARACTERISTICS 133 

enjoyable a time as ever before in my life. But I wish I could see you 
and talk it all over. Could you and Airs. Foulke come on to New York 
and spend a night with us here? 

Faithfully yours, 

Theodore Roosevelt. 

A little later Mr. Roosevelt invited Mr. Lucius B. Swift and 
myself to visit him at Oyster Bay, where he gave us graphic 
reminiscences of various notables and crowned heads in Europe. 
I remember well his estimate of Emperor William: "A very force- 
ful man, but superficial." It is much the same estimate that John 
Morley gives in his reminiscences on the occasion of the Kaiser's 
visit to England. The Emperor's attainments came from his 
extensive intercourse with others and not at all from study. When 
I was in Berlin in 1890 I became acquainted with Bogdan Krieger, 
the librarian of the Kaiser's private library in the imperial palace 
at Berlin. He told me that during all the years he had been 
there he had never once seen the Emperor in his own library. 

Mr. Roosevelt had the highest opinion of the general literary 
and scientific attainments of the King of Italy, whom he con- 
sidered the most cultivated monarch he had met. 

I have on several occasions received from Mr. Roosevelt friendly 
criticisms of various books I have written. Among these are the 
following: 

January 4, 1907. 
Dear Foulke: 

... I took down with me to Pine Knot, for my four days' Christ- 
mas week holiday, your "Life of Morton," and I have been so much 
interested in it and so much impressed by it that I feel that I must 
tell you so. What a rugged giant of a man he was ! It seems to me 
that, of course always excepting Lincoln, he stands in the very front 
of the civilians who did most service during the Civil War. No cabinet 
minister and no other war governor had a task quite as hard as his, 
and at least no other war governor had a task as important. I am 
ashamed to say that until I read your book I had not the full idea I 
should have had of the man's greatness or of the incalculable service 
he rendered the country. I suppose that this was because while at 
Harvard, and for a year or two afterwards. I moved in what might 
be called Mugwump circles, where the Nation and the Evcmtig Post 
were treated as well-nigh final authorities, until I got out into the world 
of men and myself took part in the rough and tumble of the life where 



134 l^JP^ I^ WASHINGTON 

great deeds are actually done. I very much wish that Rhodes in 
his last two volumes had not written in the Mugwump strain. I 
greatly admired his first five volumes, but I think his last two show 
a lamentable falling off. They give the real Mugwump view and betray 
the Mugwump utter lack of perspective. One may condemn unstintedly 
much that was done by Gram and the stalwart Republicans without 
becoming so blind as to fail to see that it was the Southerners them- 
selves who really forced the Fifteenth Amendment and reconstruction 
on the North, for instance ; and above all without becoming so blind 
as to fail to see that the Copperheads, ranging from Vallandigham up 
to Hendricks and Seymour, acted so badly during the Civil War that 
it is the veriest folly and iniquity to treat any subsequent action 
of theirs as putting them in the same category with a man like Morton, 
in spite of Morton's shortcomings after the war. 

So it is with Schurz. Rhodes actually calls him an ideal Senator, 
which is in itself an absurdity; but the praise of him becomes even 
more absurd when compared with what he says and leaves unsaid 
of Morton, for the service Morton rendered during the iron times of 
the Civil War makes Schurz's whole career seem pinchbeck by contrast. 
But Schurz, like Sumner, came from among the classes that write; 
and the people who feel superior to others, and who also have the 
literary habit, are apt to persuade themselves and others that there 
really is such superiority ; whereas in reality these men are really the 
heroes only of the cloister and the parlour, and dwindle to littleness 
in the great crises, where men like Morton tower above their fellows. 

Also the following on March 29, 1907: 

My Dear Foulke: The translation of "Paul the Deacon" has just 
come, and I have already begun to read it. It is such a pleasure to 
have friends who do such things as you do! What a delightful old 
boy the Deacon was ; and what an interesting mixture of fact and fable 
he wrote I 

And later, on July 30, 19 16: 

Both Mrs. Roosevelt and I loved your- poems — perhaps most of all 
those that referred to your dear wife, to whom give our warmest re- 
membrances. I am very proud of the poem about me and am glad that 
it faces the one about Oliver Morton. 



OTHER WASHINGTON ASSOCIATIONS 

While in Washington I was a member of a number of clubs 
and societies: the Cosmos, University, and Chevy Chase clubs, 



OTHER WASHINGTON ASSOCIATIONS 13 5 

the Geographical Society, Archaeological Institute, etc. But there 
was one of these with which my connection was quite intimate, 
the Washington Literary Society. It was composed largely of the 
older residents of Washington, with a smaller admixture of the 
official and transient population of the city. Alexander Graham 
Bell, Ainsworth R. Spofford, John W. Foster, Francis E. Leupp, 
Herbert Putnam, Carroll D. Wright, David J. Hill, and George 
Kennan were among its members. Kennan read some excellent 
papers to the club, one on "Napoleonder," the Russian folk myth 
based on the invasion by Napoleon; another was a remarkable 
essay on "Suicides." Both of these afterwards appeared in maga- 
zine form. 

I came to know Kennan quite well. I had met him a number 
of years before at his Washington home whither I had gone to 
ask if he had discovered any errors in my monograph "Slav and 
Saxon," that I might make the necessary corrections in my sub- 
sequent editions. His working room at that time was draped 
like a Kirghiz tent, with divans, arms and curios, and was highly 
picturesque and extraordinary. I saw a good deal of him after- 
wards at Baddeck, on Cape Breton Island, where he had a sum- 
mer home. Kennan was like the Ancient Mariner. While he was 
speaking one could not choose but hear. Indeed, whenever he 
talked, either of his Siberian journeys, of his visit to Mont Pelee 
after the eruption, or of his many other thrilling adventures, 
both the story and the manner of its telling were so absorbing 
as to exclude entirely all other things. 

The Literary Society used to meet at the houses of the various 
members. IMy house was much too tiny for this, so when my turn 
came I entertained the members in one of the ballrooms at the 
New Willard, where Mr. Spofford, the veteran librarian of Con- 
gress, gave us an excellent paper. 

Mr. Spofford was a friend whose companionship I greatly prized. 
He was a very lovable man and had the most phenomenal memory 
of any one I ever knew. The Congressional Library, the largest 
in the country, had a very insufficient catalogue, but it "didn't 
need one"; Spofford knew all that was in it. Any Congressman 
who wanted information had only to see him. He could tell 
him of all extant literature on any subject, and this was much 



136 LIFE IN WASHINGTON 

easier than to fumble for hours among the cases of a card cata- 
logue. Although he was then a very old man, he was fond of 
taking long rides into the country, and among the most delight- 
ful hours I spent when Civil Service Commissioner, were those 
at the side of Mr. Spofford on his slow and easy-gaited horse, 
wandering not only among the fields of Maryland and Virginia, 
but also among the fields of literature and history, of which his 
knowledge was profound and inexhaustible. 

Other delightful recollections of my life in Washington were 
connected with the Round Table Club at the Congressional 
Library. This was extremely informal; indeed, it was not an 
organisation at all. Mr. Herbert Putnam, the librarian, invited 
a certain number of his friends to lunch each day in the large, 
airy, attractive room on the top floor of the Library. These gen- 
tlemen had the right to bring with them their friends as invited 
guests. Mr. Putnam generally had guests of his own, and many 
distinguished men from all parts of the world were there. 
Science, art, politics, diplomacy, literature, were all represented, 
and the conversation, sometimes general and sometimes among 
little groups, was both brilliant and instructive. At one of these 
meetings I was sitting next to Augustus St. Gaudens, the sculptor, 
and had an interesting talk with him regarding the meaning of 
his Adams monument in Rock Creek Cemetery. I have always 
considered this monument as the finest specimen of the sculptor's 
art since the time of the Greeks. The heavily draped figure and 
solemn face and the wonderful setting have made it im- 
pressive beyond any other work of art I have ever known. I 
have seen groups of visitors chatting and laughing before they 
entered the monument enclosure — it is surrounded by a high 
hedge or thicket — but when they came in and took their places 
on the marble benches in front of the statue they were instantly 
awed into silence. There is something inscrutable about the face, 
and people have given all sorts of meaning to it, a point which 
the sculptor was by no means anxious to clarify. Mr. Procter 
told me he once asked St. Gaudens what particular feeling that 
inscrutable face was intended to represent, and the sculptor 
answered, "Why, don't you know?" which cut short further 
enquiries. I made up my mind not to be caught in this way 



OTHER WASHINGTON ASSOCIATIONS 13I 

and yet to find out what I could, so I observed to him that a 
great work of painting or sculpture which depicted emotion seemed 
to me like a great work of music; the feeling was there, but could 
not always be analysed, and I said that was the impression I 
derived from his statue, and I supposed that was what he intended. 
He answered me that this was the case. I really did not get any 
more information than Procter, except that the mystery regarding 
the meaning of the statue was not intended to be more clearly 
revealed. In quite a different way this statue calls to my mind 
the face of Monna Lisa. In both cases the inscrutable adds 
greatly to the power of the work. 

One of the duties imposed upon many of those who hold office 
in Washington is that of responding to invitations to deliver 
addresses at various places throughout the country and upon all 
sorts of occasions. I received many of these, most of which I 
declined, since they would interfere too seriously with my work 
upon the Civil Service Commission. There were a few of them 
that I accepted and among those that stand out most prominently 
in my memory was a memorial address at Canton, Ohio, which I 
had been asked to deliver on the anniversary of McKinley's death, 
and a memorial address at Gettysburg on Decoration Day. At the 
latter place the historic surroundings, the great multitude of chil- 
dren who came to decorate the graves, and the remembrance that 
it was here that Lincoln had delivered his immortal words, gave, 
as it seemed to me, an impressive character to the occasion. 

I have already spoken of the paternal care taken of me when in 
Washington by Miller, the butler, and his wife, Minnie, the cook. 
They were Irish servants of the very best type. Miller, who was 
by turns butler and coachman, was very proud of driving the 
President and Mrs. Roosevelt, as he did on one or two occasions 
when we went to Georgetown for a row up the Potomac. He took 
excellent care of the horses and of the dog. Grouse, a setter which 
he trained in a remarkable manner. The dog would run out in 
the morning when he saw the postman coming, take the letters 
in his mouth, bring them up into my bedroom before I rose, 
and lay them on the bed. Sometimes Miller would send the dog 
after a particular horse, having left the stable door open and 
the halter untied on purpose. Grouse would run, seize the strap 



138 UFE IN WASHINGTON 

of the halter, and lead the horse to the place appointed. He 
used to do the marketing for Minnie at the grocer's. She would 
write down the order, put it in a basket, and Grouse would go 
and return with the provisions. This was indeed the usual method 
of purchase for a considerable time. But the most remarkable 
evidence of his intelligence was on one occasion when he came 
into the kitchen and began pulling at her dress. She knew it 
meant something and followed him. He went out the door, around 
the house, and into a vacant lot opposite, where he took her 
into the middle of the lot and stopped. She looked around and 
there upon the ground was a purse. This was the highest mark of 
intelligence I have ever known in a four-footed animal. He could 
of course have brought the purse to her after he had found it, 
but that would have given no clue to where it came from. He 
evidently knew it was a valuable thing which had been lost and 
that she ought to know where it was. 

It was in the spring of 1903 that I was forced, because of 
ill health, to give up my post as Civil Service Commissioner. I 
then went to the baths of Nauheim in Germany for treatment 
for an affection of the heart, which has continued with some inter- 
missions ever since. The following fall I returned to Washing- 
ton, remained there some months, and then moved back to my 
home in Indiana. 



THE MUSKOGEE INVESTIGATION 

It was in the later days of President Roosevelt's administra- 
tion, long after I had left the Civil Service Commission, that I 
was asked by him and by Mr. Hitchcock, Secretary of the 
Interior, to go to Muskogee, in what was then the Indian Terri- 
tory, and investigate an alleged conspiracy which, it was said, 
had resulted in defrauding the Creek Indians of much of their 
property in that town. 

The facts indicating the fraudulent character of sales made 
to squatters and speculators were shown by the testimony of many 
witnesses whom I examined during my stay of some weeks at 
Muskogee, and were reported with my conclusions to the Inte- 



THE MUSKOGEE INVESTIGATION 139 

rior Department. But the most interesting part of my experi- 
ence was not the investigation itself, but the things I observed 
or learned, while I was there, regarding the place and the com- 
munity. 

The town was a remarkable one. It was at this time only 
seven or eight years old and embodied a most curious mixture 
of elegance and crudity. The ladies dressed better than in any 
town of the size I ever saw — as well as in Washington or New 
York — they sent to Paris for their gowns; the theatre was far 
finer than in most cities of the same size. The people went to 
the play in evening dress, but when you came out into the 
street afterwards you found the carriages bespattered with mud 
up to their very tops. They had to toil through the sticky clay 
hub deep, and in one of the principal streets a mired horse had 
been pulled out by a rope and tackle. In muddy weather it was 
as impossible to take a walk in the country as it would have been 
if the town had been an island. Many of the men wore laced boots 
that came nearly to the knees to keep the mud off their 
trousers. 

There was a fine, big jail in the place, and it was brim full. 
Every day or two you heard of somebody being killed. No 
liquor was allowed in the territory, yet alcoholic smells abounded 
and you saw men reeling in the streets. If you asked for a 
glass of beer you were told they had no beer but only ''Mistletoe," 
which looked like it, and if you tried it, it tasted the same and 
produced the same effect. Everybody was making money hand 
over iist. 

The country was wonderfully rich. The bottom land sold for 
a hundred dollars an acre with practically no improvements. 
Oil, gas, coal and other deposits abounded. A great part of the 
population followed the occupation of fleecing Indians or whites 
indiscriminately. A man was called before a Senate committee 
which was taking testimony while I was in Muskogee. He was 
asked what his business was, and answered that he was a 
"grafter." He told the committee that he dealt in titles to Indian 
lands, paid "any old price" for them and could always get 
enough by "clouding a title" to come out ahead. He actually 



I40 LIFE IN WASHINGTON 

advertised these declarations before the committee in order to 
promote his own business. 

But the Indians, although innocent as children in regard to 
money or other property, were sly enough in some ways. For 
instance, I attended a hearing before this Senate committee in 
which some of the old tribesmen made speeches in the Creek 
language, urging certain requests upon the Government. Among 
the orators was a man named Sam Haynes, a member of the 
"House of Kings" of the Creek Nation. He had a typewritten 
manuscript before him and became very eloquent in his oration. 
A long, cadaverous-looking white man sat next to him and trans- 
lated it into English, he too making gestures and declaiming as 
if he were a second Cicero, while the solemn senatorial owls 
upon the other side of the table listened in silence and seemed 
to be impressed. 

A day or two afterwards I met Sam Haynes, spoke of that 
manuscript and asked him whether it was written in English or 
Creek. There was a twinkle in his eye as he answered, "It was 
in English." We had listened to the solemn jugglery of trans- 
lating it into Creek and back again for the purpose of making a 
deeper impression upon the Senators. 

The white men in the neighbourhood had very convincing ways 
of imposing their views upon those who were sent by the Gov- 
ernment to do work in the territory. One man came to appraise 
the lots in a town not far away. He estimated them too high, 
the people thought, so they delegated two men to take him around 
the corner and "do him up." They nearly killed him on account 
of his unorthodox views regarding the value of town lots, 

Muskogee was a hard place for "investigators." A man had 
been sent by the Department of Justice to investigate the con- 
duct of a Federal judge. He was a promising young man of 
good character, but he was driven crazy. Some said they "doped" 
him, but the better opinion was that the lawyers, the judge, and 
the newspaper men between them did it quite legitimately, as 
one may say; that is, by nagging him until he went mad. He 
had to leave town with a caretaker, became violently insane, and 
some time afterwards jumped from a two-story window and killed 
himself. That was one case. Another inspector who went there 



THE MUSKOGEE INVESTIGATION 141 

became ill, vanished, and soon afterwards died. Another came, 
fell ill, departed, and the case was not heard from again. 

But it must not be thought that the people of Muskogee did 
things so sanguinary and cruel to all of us. Milder forms of 
punishment were meted out for minor offenders. To most of us 
they gave what they called the "horse laugh," or perhaps merely 
smiled at us and regarded us as harmless cranks, beneath con- 
tempt. In other parts of the world if a federal inspector came, 
hunted up witnesses, and rummaged among documents, he might 
awaken some awe, or at least be treated with deference. Here 
there was calm derision. The sentiment was, "Investigate and 

be d d." I went to the theatre and was regaled by songs 

with gags regarding "inspectors whom the Government had paid," 
which were received with tremendous enthusiasm by the audience, 
many of whom turned around to laugh at me. One night a young 
man and his best girl were seated near me. She asked, pointing 
to me, "Who is that stranger?" And the answer was, "He is 
one of Hitchcock's private detectives." If you reflected that the 
name Hitchcock represented all that was loathsome to the hard- 
working grafters you might realise the depth of infamy to which 
such an answer consigned me. We were called in the daily press 
the "overpaid vassals of the Secretary," and there were squibs 
implying that investigations were as perpetual as earth and sky. 
I think myself that the intermissions between them were almost 
as rare as the closing of the gates of Janus. 

Men regaled me with the story of a recent one where the 
investigators reported that charges of intoxication of a late In- 
dian agent and the use of liquor at the agency were unfounded. 
They said men were stationed at the doors to prevent the wit- 
nesses against the agent from entering. While the inspector was 
conducting his enquiries on the inside, one of these guardians of 
the portals of knowledge, an Indian policeman, was so drunk that 
he fell asleep and reeled over, whereupon a whiskey flask fell from 
his pocket and broke, spilling the contents on the floor. Then 
one of the clerks, who rejoiced in the appropriate name of Wis- 
dom, saw the catastrophe and threw his overcoat over the place. 
When the inspector appeared immediately afterwards and asked 
what caused the peculiar odour he perceived, he was told it was 



142 LIFE IN WASHINGTON 

the oil stove, whereupon he observed that such a stove ought 
to be removed. The successor to this exonerated agent told me 
that the first thing he found in the office safe was fifteen empty 
whiskey bottles. 

So the "horse laugh" was very prevalent there when I began 
my investigation. But I doubt whether the good citizens of 
Muskogee would have stopped at that if they had known what 
was to follow. For many suits were begun to set aside the illegal 
transactions I had unearthed, and although there were great 
difficulties in the way and no complete restitution was possible, 
still large sums of money were recovered for the Creek Nation. 

In conversation with the judge of the Federal court at Musko- 
gee, I heard a remarkable tribute to the truthfulness of the 
Indians. He told me that in his experience he had found the 
negroes extremely untrustworthy. Their testimony had little 
value. The white men and half-breeds would sometimes tell the 
truth, and sometimes not, but the full-blooded Indian would never 
lie, his testimony was absolutely reliable. 

This tribute has led me to wonder whether Indians generally 
are as faithless as they have been painted. Treachery has always 
been imputed to them by the whites just as perfidy was attributed 
to the Carthaginians by the Romans and embodied in the epithet 
'Tunic faith." I can not but believe that the great body of the 
aborigines of America are entitled to a better reputation in the 
matter of integrity than we have ever given them. And as to 
ourselves — what can we ever say in defence or palliation of the 
knavery of many of our own race in their dealings with these 
wards of the nation? 



CHAPTER VIII 

ROOSEVELT AND TAFT CAMPAIGNS 

Lo! he would lift the burden from the weak, 
Kindle with hope the dull eye of despair, 
And for the common weal all things would dare, 

Scourging the money-changers, smiling, sleek. 

Forth from the temple till on him they seek 
Impotent vengeance. Slanders must he bear ; 
Foul imprecations that infect the air; 

Lies, till the heavy breath of Heaven doth reek 

With stench of calumny; the assassin's blow; 
The mockery of the proud; the stinging thorn 
Of faithless friendship; flattery turned to scorn; 

Yet while the coming years their gifts bestow, 
Crowning great names with glory, his shall shine 
In the front rank of our illustrious line. 

— Theodore Roosevelt. 

THE ROOSEVELT CAMPAIGN, I904 

As the time for the Presidential election in 1904 drew near, 
it seemed clear that Mr. Roosevelt would be the Republican can- 
didate. His administration had been successful, and for the party 
to repudiate it and nominate another man would be fraught with' 
serious danger. There were of course malcontents, especially 
among the "standpatters," and many Republicans looked back 
with regret to the time when the "organisation" had greater power 
and when their special interests were more carefully protected. 
Although Mark Hanna, the Warwick of the McKinley adminis- 
tration, was much talked of by dissatisfied politicians as a candi- 
date, yet when the Republican Convention met, the popular 
demand for Roosevelt was so overwhelming that he was the inevi- 
table choice of the party. Alton B. Parker was nominated by the 
Democrats. After my return from Europe in the early fall I 
took an active part in the canvass, speaking in various parts of 
the country. 

143 



144 ROOSEVELT AND TAFT CAMPAIGNS 

One episode in this campaign is worth recalling. Mr. Carl 
Schurz had published in September, 1904, an open letter to inde- 
pendent voters, in which he said: "There are two Roosevelts in 
the field, the ideal, the legendary Roosevelt, as he once appeared 
and as many people still imagine him to be, and the real Roose- 
velt as he has since developed. There are no doubt many good 
citizens who intend to vote for Mr. Roosevelt, having the legen- 
dary Roosevelt in mind, but they will do well to consider that if 
elected, the real Roosevelt will be President." 

Mr. Schurz here pictured the legendary Roosevelt as a man 
who abhorred and denounced spoils and immoral practices and 
contrasted him with the real Roosevelt, who consulted Boss Piatt 
about public matters, treated the unspeakable Addicks with 
"friendly neutrality," had made Henry C. Payne, a lobbyist and 
political wire-puller, Postmaster-General, had appointed Clarkson 
to be surveyor of the Port of New York, and had been actually 
praised and supported by Lou Payn, whom he had dismissed as 
insurance commissioner. 

This open letter incensed me beyond measure. The continual 
talk about the changes going on in Mr. Roosevelt's character had 
been making me weary for many years. Mr. Roosevelt first 
entered public life in 1882, as a member of the New York Legis- 
lature, where he was greatly praised for his independent and 
fearless course. But in 1884, only two years afterwards, when 
he voted for Blaine, many of the Mugwumps lost all confidence in 
him. When he was nominated as Mayor of New York in 1886, 
he had again degenerated. In 1890, when he was Civil Service 
Commissioner, they used to write to him "that it was hopeless 
to expect him to be true to his ideals now that he had been 
appointed to office." When he became Assistant Secretary of 
the Navy, they said there had been a great back-sliding from his 
splendid record on the Civil Service Commission. When he ran 
for Governor of New York, he was utterly given up by these sons 
of righteousness because he "took breakfast with Piatt." Now 
he had fallen again, and the "legendary Roosevelt" of the past 
had become the "real Roosevelt." These repeated descents to 
Avernus, if they had not been wholly imaginary, would have 
brought him long before to some place far below the bottomless 



THE ROOSEVELT CAMPAIGN, 1904 145 

pit, yet those who knew him well knew that he was exactly the 
same Roosevelt that he had always been. 

In a number of my speeches, as well as in the public press, 
I thus commented upon the observations made by Mr. Schurz: 

"One would think that a man who thus deprecates changes, even 
those which are imaginary, would himself be a paragon of immutability. 
Yet in the campaign of 1896 Mr. Schurz, in his speech of September 5 
at Chicago, treating of free coinage and Mr. Bryan's candidacy, said : 

" 'The father who teaches such moral principles to his children 
educates them for fraud, dishonour and the penitentiary. The public 
men who teach such moral principles to the people educate the people 
for the contempt and abhorrence of mankind. The nation that accepts 
such moral principles cannot live. It will rot to death in the loath- 
some stew of its own corruption. If the nation accepting such moral 
principles be this republic, it will deal a blow to the credit of democratic 
institutions from which the cause of free government will not recover 
for centuries.' 

"And yet after saying all that, Mr. Schurz voted for Mr. Bryan four 
years later upon exactly the same platform, thus helping to educate 
the people for the contempt and abhorrence of mankind 1" ^ 

The issues presented by the Democrats were most unimpressive. 
The silver Democrats and gold Democrats were still so far apart 
that the success even of a neutral and colourless man like Mr. 
Parker was impossible. Indeed, the extravagant praise bestowed 
upon this candidate by men who knew nothing about him or his 
career seemed like the worship of the Athenians for the unknown 
god. There was but one result possible. Roosevelt was chosen 
by the largest majority yet given for any candidate for the 
Presidency. His second term was even more fruitful than the 

*One of Air. Schurz's friends was very indignant at these strictures, 
saying that in the present platform of the Democratic Party imperial- 
ism, and not free silver, was the paramount issue, and that it was upon 
this that Mr. Schurz had supported Mr. Bryan. This was true, and 
yet the platform upon which Mr. Brj-an was running in 1900 had dis- 
tinctly endorsed the free silver plank that had been adopted in i8g6. 
As to the "paramount issue," I wondered what issue could be para- 
mount to one which would cause the nation "to rot to death in the 
loathsome stew of its own corruption" and "discredit the cause of free 
government for centuries." 



146 ROOSEVELT AND TAFT CAMPAIGNS 

first in beneficent legislation and in wise and efficient adminis- 
tration, and it was crowned by an unexampled diplomatic tri- 
umph in negotiations, conducted upon his personal responsibility, 
for the settlement of the great war between Russia and Japan. 



THE TAFT CAMPAIGN, I908 

It will be remembered that Roosevelt, after he had been elected 
to the Presidency at the expiration of his first term, had announced 
that he would not again be a candidate, and during his second 
administration the question of his successor was naturally con- 
sidered. Roosevelt himself thought that the two most desirable 
men were Mr. Root and Mr. Taft. Mr. Hughes, the governor of 
New York, while an admirable state executive, had then far less 
knowledge than the other two of national affairs or of the men 
necessary to conduct them. The President once in a conversation 
in the dining-room of the White House, after all the others had 
left, spoke to me in the warmest terms of Mr. Root's ability, but 
he did not consider that he possessed the personal popularity 
which would make him available, and the fact that, as a lawyer, 
he had represented at various times vast moneyed interests in 
Wall Street made it doubtful whether he would be an acceptable 
candidate to the West. Mr. Taft, whose frank and genial nature 
made him universally esteemed, had been a warm and able sup- 
porter of the President's policies, and the President said he 
believed that on the whole he would be the most desirable 
candidate. 

As the time approached for the Republican Convention, the 
preference of President Roosevelt for Mr. Taft was openly de- 
clared, and by reason of this it was charged that the President 
was not only trying to force this nomination upon the party, but 
was using Government appointments for that purpose and was 
coercing Federal employees on behalf of his candidate. The 
charges were sufficient to draw from him an elaborate statement 
of the character of his appointments and the principles upon 
which he acted, and at a later period an investigating committee 
of the National Civil Service Reform League, to which he turned 
over his appointment lists for examination, reported that not only 



THE TAFT CAMPAIGN, igo8 147 

were appointments made in the usual manner on the recommenda- 
tion of Congressmen, but sometimes of Congressmen who were 
notoriously opposed to Mr. Taft, and that the charges were not 
substantiated.* 

An illustration of the manner in which the patronage charges 
against Roosevelt were made is shown by the following correspond- 
ence. I was spending the summer at Watch Hill, from which place 
on August 2, 1908, 1 wrote to the President as follows: 

"A curious cock-and-bull story is going the rounds here. In spite 
of being known as your friend, I am a member (I believe in good 
standing) of 'The Ananias Club' at this place. It was declared in 
open session the other night that you had purchased the support of 
the delegation from Connecticut for Mr. Taft by the appointment of 
a Federal judge in that State. This was stated by a gentleman who 
was himself a delegate to the Chicago Convention, and two other mem- 
bers of the Club declared they had personal knowledge of the fact 
that you had promised the appointment to a Mr. Beach, whom you 
selected to reward him for his work in the celebrated Danbury case 
and to show your independence of the Connecticut senators ; but that 
you found you could not get a Taft delegation from Connecticut unless 
you made the appointment recommended by the senators, which you 
accordingly did. The celeriiy with which this tale was accepted would 
be worthy of Wall Street." 

To this he answered on the following day: 

"I don't suppose that there was a contested appointment that came 
up during the last year as regards which some people did not, on be- 
half of each candidate, assert that to appoint him would help in the 
nomination of Taft; and it is perfectly possible that such a statement 
was made as regards the judge whom I appointed in Connecticut, 
whose name I for the moment forget. But if so, I don't remember 
it. Indeed, I should be inclined to think that it was far more probable 
that it was made as regards Mr. Beach. I of course never promised 
to appoint Beach, and whoever says I did promise lies out of hand. 
I distrust both of the Connecticut Senators, and especially distrust 
their recommendations in judicial matters, and therefore I took up my 
investigation into possible judges in Connecticut on my own initiative. 
I found out that there were four or five candidates of whom men 

2 See "Fighting the Spoilsmen," pp. 209, 210. 



148 ROOSEVELT AND TAFT CAMPAIGNS 

spoke very well, one of these being a former partner of one Senator, 
and I was informed that this fact would insure his being supported 
by the Senators, and that I should be very fortunate if I could get 
him. At first I was inclined to think Mr. Beach the better man, Hadley 
recommending him very strongly. I had Herbert Knox Smith inves- 
tigate, and he agreed with Hadley that Beach would be the better 
man, but also reported strongly in favour of the other man, the man 
whom I actually did appoint. Clark, the editor of the Courant, and 
Alsop, a young fellow, a Yale man, a farmer, the leader of the Inde- 
pendents in the Connecticut Legislature, wrote to me very strongly 
in behalf of the judge whom I actually appointed. I then made a 
very careful investigation. I came to the conclusion that the men 
were of substantially equal merit ; indeed, that possibly Beach was 
not quite as good as the other man, and that under such circumstances 
it would be imwise to get into a fight with the two Senators where I 
should certainly be beaten, and where the great bulk of my sup- 
porters in Connecticut itself would feel that I was in error and was 
influenced, not by a desire to get a first-class judge, but by a desire 
to see my man appointed instead of the Senators' man. In short, I 
followed exactly the same course that I have followed every- 
where. 

"You are entirely at liberty to read this letter to any one of those 
who made the statement to you, including especially the man who was 
a delegate to the Chicago Convention, and the two other members 
of the Club who declared they had personal knowledge of the facts. 
You may tell them from me that their statements are deliberate and 
wilful falsehoods, if they said, as you report, that I had promised the 
appointment to Mr. Beach, but found I could not get a Taft delega- 
tion from Connecticut unless I made the appointment recommended by 
the Senators, which I accordingly did. The ludicrousness of the false- 
hood is made plain by the fact, of which the men responsible must 
be fully aware, that the two Senators remained always hostile to Taft, 
never to me nor to any one else said they would support him or get 
the delegation for him, and that we finally got the delegation for Taft 
against their efforts, and actually left them at home because they 
weren't for Taft. In short, the statement is a lie from beginning to 
end. I always counted upon the hostility of the Senators to Taft. 
I originally expected them to recommend a candidate for judge whom 
I could not appoint, and when I finally became convinced that the 
candidate whom they recommended was substantially as good as, and 
was thought by a number of the best men to be better than, any other 
candidate considered, I did as I have always done with all other 
Senators in like cases and made the appointment. I shall be interested 
to hear what your informants have to say when this statement is made 
to them." 



THE TAFT CAMPAIGN, igo8 149 

I replied as follows: 

"I submitted your letter regarding the Connecticut judgeship to my 
three informants. The first said that your promise to appoint Beach 
was contained in a letter to Hadley, which my informant had not seen 
but which Hadley had interpreted as a promise, and was much disap- 
pointed when Noyes was chosen. My informant admitted, however, 
that he knew nothing about the appointment being made for the pur- 
pose of securing the Connecticut delegation for Taft. 

"The gentleman who was a delegate to the Chicago Convention, upon 
being informed of your letter, insisted that it should be read before 
the Ananias Club, as a whole, as they had heard his original statement, 
so I read the letter to them, changing, however, the one 'little ugly 
word,' a 'lie,' to the word 'untrue,' which I think does not substantially 
affect the meaning. The delegate then said that a certain person whom 
he declined to name had been to see you and had told you that if you 
appointed Beach, whom you then proposed to appoint, you could not 
get the delegation for Taft and that when you afterwards appointed 
Noyes, there were many who believed that this was the reason you 
had done it. I answered that it might be that many believed that, but 
the important question was, 'Was it true?' He answered that he 
believed so too, and I replied that since he discredited your statement 
as to the reasons for the appointment, he must pardon us if some of 
us did not believe him. 

"The third gentleman said that he had heard substantially the same 
thing, that he had believed that the purpose of your appointment was 
to secure a Taft delegation, but that your letter was a strong one and 
threw a different light upon the matter. 

"With two other exceptions, I think the Club generally was upon my 
side of the controversy. I would not have brought such a subject 
before you at all except that I thought some question about it might 
arise later and tliat it might be well to nip it in the bud as far as 
possible." 

To this the President rejoined: 

"I have your letter of August 6th. There is nothing to say as to 
the second and third of your informants. Neither of them specifies 
anything which it would be possible either to prove or refute. I can 
not answer a man who says that *a certain person,' whom he declines 
to name, has been to see me, especially when he says that it was that 
man himself, and not I, who made the statement that if I appointed 
Beach I could not get the delegation for Taft. Now as to your first 
informant, who said that my promise to appoint Beach was contained 
in a letter to Hadley which he had not seen, but which Hadley 



150 ROOSEVELT AND TAFT CAMPAIGNS 

interpreted as a promise, and was much disappointed when Noyes was 
chosen. Following I give you all the letters I wrote Hadley." . . . 

Here follow the letters, in which no promise was contained. 
The President thus concluded: 

"You are welcome to show all this to your informant and ask him 
just what he can find in the correspondence that would in the remotest 
way imply a promise on my part to appoint Beach or any attitude 
as to which exception could be taken." 

To this no further rejoinder was made. 

There was indeed much political manipulation in the Repub- 
lican Convention by the friends of various candidates. But the 
most flagrant cases were among the supporters of other candi- 
dates than Mr. Taft. Many of the States had "favourite sons." 
Among these was Indiana, where Mr. Fairbanks was supported 
by the political organisation of the State. Mr. Taft, however, 
was nominated. His Democratic competitor was Mr. Bryan. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT 

They left behind the shme of things unclean — 

The welded power of gold, the spoils of place, 
The subtle bonds of government unseen — 

To lift the helpless and redeem the base. 
They had a vision. Has it passed away 

To be forgot and known of men no more? 
Not so. It only hides its face to-day 

To rise to-morrow statelier than before. 
And he, their chieftain by diviner right 

Than any king on earth — his banner furled — 
Though he no longer lead them in the fight 

For ampler justice and a better world. 
Justice shall come although her feet be slow, 
And fairer springs shall blossom than we know. 

— Progressives. 

THE TAFT ADMINISTRATION 

Mr. Taft was elected by an overwhelming majority. The con- 
vention which had nominated him was emphatically a Roosevelt 
convention, and the platform adopted opened with the declara- 
tion that the Republican Party had reached its highest service 
under Mr. Roosevelt's leadership; and after reciting in detail the 
things he had accomplished, added: 

We declare our unfaltering adherence to the policies thus inaugurated 
and pledge their continuance under a Republican administration of the 
government. 

It was upon this platform that Mr. Taft had been elected, and 
the American people expected him to carry out the Roosevelt 
policies. Almost immediately after the inauguration, Mr. Roose- 
velt started upon his African expedition. He thus made himself 
quite inaccessible and left Mr. Taft free to carry out his pledges 

151 



152 THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT 

in his own way, unfettered by any kind of pressure from his 
predecessor. 

But even before Taft was inaugurated there were strong influ- 
ences around him urging him not to make his administration "the 
mere echo" of President Roosevelt's, and assuring him that by an 
independent course he could allay the conflict between the special 
interests and the people, as well as the discord in his own party, 
and that in this way he could transcend the achievements of his 
predecessor. The same thing had occurred when Roosevelt be- 
came President. He tells us in his autobiography (p. 381) of the 
friends who warned him against becoming a "pale copy of Mc- 
Kinley." But Roosevelt was not afraid of this, and he not only 
declared that he would continue McKinley's policies, but he even 
kept in office the whole of McKinley's Cabinet. Mr. Taft, how- 
ever, made radical changes among his advisers and soon became 
closely affiliated with many who had attempted to thwart the 
policies of his predecessor. 

During Mr. Roosevelt's administration the revision of the tariff 
had been crowded out by more pressing issues. There was, how- 
ever, a widespread feeling that many of the schedules were unjust, 
that they had encouraged the formation of monopolies and the 
acquisition of vast fortunes, and had laid unnecessary burdens 
upon the consumers. The Republican Convention accordingly 
promised "a revision of the tariff by a special session of Congress 
immediately following the inauguration of the next Presi- 
dent." 

A revision is not necessarily a reduction, but the purpose of 
these words was to allay the widespread dissatisfaction of those 
who insisted that the tariff was too high. There were some thirty 
or more so-called "insurgents" in the House of Representatives 
who believed that Speaker Cannon was so closely identified with 
the trusts and protected interests that a satisfactory revision of 
the tariff could not be made under his leadership. The feeling 
was widespread throughout the Middle West that this was the 
case. When the insurgents tried to defeat Cannon for the speak- 
ership, Mr. Taft endeavoured to induce them to desist. This led 
to severe criticism, and as much of it came from my own State 
I thought I ought to inform the President of the feeling which 



THE PAYNE-ALDRICH TARIFF BILL 153 

existed there. I had always been in the habit of speaking thus 
frankly to President Roosevelt, and as my relations with Mr. Taft 
were friendly, I presumed I might do the same thing with him, and 
a few days after his inauguration I wrote him at some length about 
the state of public opinion in the West, and especially in Indiana; 
of the resentment felt towards Cannon for his former obstruction- 
ist tactics and for his support of the protected interests. I told 
him that he, Mr. Taft, was suspected (although this was "utterly 
unreasonable") of being out of sympathy with the progressive 
element and of favouring Cannon's control; that this growing dis- 
trust was being openly voiced by prominent Republican papers 
in the State, and added that I thought it was only fair that he 
should have an honest statement of certain opinions widely held, 
no matter how much injustice these did him personally. 

I found, however, from his answer (which, being confidential, 
I am not at liberty to quote) that he had taken my letter as a 
personal reflection; and he ended his reply with a rather sharp 
criticism upon "unreasonable reformers." Perhaps I had ex- 
pressed myself too bluntly, but evidently here was a man who 
took friendly, though unpalatable, information in quite a differ- 
ent spirit from that of Roosevelt. I replied to him as follows: 

To THE President. March 15, 1909. 

Dear Sir : 

You have quite misunderstood my letter of the loth. I did not in 
the least question that you were doing exactly right as to Cannon, 
but I told you what the people were saying. I did not presume to 
advise j'ou, but w^ill say now that if you would tell the whole country 
what you have just said in your letter to me, it would do much to 
keep intact that general confidence which is now unreasonably and 
prematurely wavering. I think you are dead right as to "reformers." 
I did not write as such, but, as I have been accustomed from long 
friendship to saying a lot of unpleasant things to President Roosevelt, 
I thought I might serve you by giving you a disinterested statement of 
what I knew. 

THE PAYNE-ALDRICH TARIFF BILL 

At the special session beginning March 11, 1909, just after 
Mr. Taft's inauguration, the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Bill was intro- 
duced. 



154 THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT 

In July, while the bill was still pending, the President wrote 
me quite a long letter discussing many of the schedules and 
expressing the hope that the reductions made in the Senate 
would produce a bill which would substantially comply with the 
promise of "downward revision." But the feeling throughout 
the country was almost universal against the proposed law, and 
the press with great unanimity denounced it. The President 
finally signed the bill as passed and began a speaking tour through 
the country in support of it. He made at Winona, Min- 
nesota, a speech declaring that the Payne-Aldrich Act was the 
best tariff bill ever passed and that there should be no further 
changes. The people would perhaps have acquiesced in Mr. Taft's 
signing the bill, when the only alternative was to leave in exist- 
ence a law which was as bad or worse, but his praise of the 
measure and its designers was more than they could stand. There 
was condemnation everywhere, and undeterred by my previous 
epistolary experience I determined once more to let him know 
what was the feeling of my own section. I therefore addressed 
to him the following letter: 

Richmond, Ind., November lo, 1909. 
To THE President. 
Dear Sir : 

I dislike to bring bad tidings, for I know the fate of those who do, 
but the best office your friend can perform is to tell you the truth. 
The sentiment in Indiana, and I think in all this region, is more abso- 
lutely unanimous against your Winona position, that there should be 
no further changes in the tariff during your administration, than I 
have ever known it to be on any other subject in my life. The idea 
of waiting to see how the tariff works is well enough, as to contro- 
verted questions, but as to a matter like the woollen schedule where 
your own remarks show that the bill was iniquitous, it cannot apply. 
Your criticism of the insurgents in your Winona speech has seemed to 
our people particularly unhappy. ... I have myself, editing an inde- 
pendent newspaper, refrained from any criticism of your position on 
this question, but I find the Republican party organs, both in this 
town and all over the State, are criticising you in no measured terms 
and making most invidious comparisons between your administration 
and that of your predecessor. The plain fact is that you are rapidly 
losing your hold on our people, and those of us who deprecate the 
inevitable alternative feel called upon to lift our voices in protest. I 



THE PAYNE-ALDRICH TARIFF BILL 155 

do not talk this way to anybody else, but it is due to you to know 
the facts. . . . 

The President answered on November 18 the above letter, and 
marked the answer personal. He must, however, have shown it, 
as well as my own letter, to others, for on the following Saturday 
there appeared in the Cincinnati Times-Star, a newspaper owned 
by Charles P. Taft, the President's half-brother, an article con- 
taining in garbled form the purport of much of the President's 
answer, and ridiculing my criticisms upon his action. 

The article added: 

"The correspondence has not been made public. But if Mr. Foulke 
should happen to make it public it would present in the most interest- 
ing fashion the position that has been taken by some of the Presi- 
dent's critics and the position taken by the President himself. And 
neither of them has anything to conceal." 

I naturally felt surprised that the President should have treated 
the correspondence in this way and on November 26 I wrote to 
him, enclosing the article in the Times-Star, and added that he 
who asked that a correspondence be kept personal should keep it 
so himself, and that if it were allowed to escape, care should be 
taken that it be fairly stated ; and that in this case even a garbled 
version ought to be free from the injurious imputation that I was 
capable of publishing a personal letter from him without his 
authority. 

To this letter the President answered: 

I was as much surprised as you to see any notice of our correspond- 
ence in the newspapers. I see very few newspaper men myself ; but I 
presume that in discussing the situation in Indiana I may have recited 
to people who are interested some of the correspondence, without the 
slightest intention of having it published. This, I understand from my 
secretary, is the way in which the matter was probably brought to the 
attention of the public. I cannot be responsible for the correspondent 
of the Times-Star or for the correspondent of any other newspaper. 
All I can do is to regret that that which was intended to be private 
correspondence was made public. 

One would not have thought that after one such experience, 
another like it would occur, but in the February following Mr. 



156 THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT 

Lucius B. Swift took occasion to send to the President a remon- 
strance somewhat similar to mine, which the President answered 
in like fashion, in a confidential letter. What was Mr. Swift's 
surprise to see public comments of the same kind, and on 
March 2d the President sent to Mr. Swift the following letter: 

My Dear Mr. Swift: 

I owe you an apology for your being troubled by queries from 
correspondents and reporters in respect to the letter I wrote you the 
other day, I do not know certainly how the fact got out that I had 
written to you, but I must infer that it is from a conversation I had 
with two Indiana men, of a confidential character. They have merely 
betrayed my confidence — that is all — for purposes of their own, appar- 
ently and have given out what they could gather from my statement 
of the correspondence. The statement was made in a discussion as 
to conditions in Indiana. When I say this I am merely stating my 
suspicion in respect to the matter, but what I wish you to understand 
is that I had no intention of allowing the matter to be published or to 
have you troubled by it. 

My conclusions above stated are fortified by a somewhat similar 
and almost coincidental experience with Dudley Foulke, and the only 
source of publicity must have been through the individuals whom I 
have in mind. 

Very sincerely yours, 

Wm. H. Taft. 

The foregoing correspondence illustrates a characteristic of 
Mr. Taft which probably led more than any other to disaster in 
his administration. He trusted those who betrayed him. In this 
case he was surrounded by men who, because they had axes of 
their own to grind, assured him that public opinion was all with 
him. These men swarmed around him while the people who 
thought otherwise remained away. A small object which is close 
at hand can hide a much greater one which is distant. So it came 
to pass that Mr. Taft did not know what was the actual feeling 
of the great body of his fellow-citizens. He saw little even of 
the newspapers that criticised him, and he adopted the unfortunate 
theory that their opposition to the Payne-Aldrich Bill was mainly 
due to the tariff it imposed on the wood pulp used in the manu- 
facture of their papers! 

The President was not content with reminding the Progressives 



BALLINGER— ROOSEVELT'S RETURN 157 

(as he had done in his Winona speech) that the Republican Party 
would bring to bear upon them that sort of public opinion which 
"would result in solid party action," but he afterwards deprived 
insurgent Congressmen of patronage in order to punish them. 
This fact was shown in the so-called Norton letter written by 
the President's secretary on September 15, 1910, which stated that 

"The President felt it to be his duty to the party and to the country 
to withhold patronage from certain Senators and Congressmen who 
seemed to be in opposition to the Administration's eflforts to carry out 
the party platform." 

This letter became public through an accident and was criti- 
cised as an attempt to control legislation by patronage. It meant 
in substance, "Vote as I want you to or you shall have no offices 
to distribute," which is spoils doctrine pure and simple. But the 
President's secretary added: 

"That attitude, however, ended with the primary elections and 
nominating conventions which have now been held and in which the 
voters have had opportunity to declare themselves." 

The meaning of this was that the President was willing to yield 
when he found that the votes were against him. 



BALLINGER — ROOSEVELX'S RETURN 

The differences between Mr. Taft and the Progressives were 
not confined to the tariff. Controversies arose in regard to the 
conservation policy inaugurated by Roosevelt and endorsed by 
the Republican Convention. President Taft made an unfortu- 
nate mistake in appointing Richard A. Ballinger Secretary of the 
Interior as the successor to James R. Garfield and in removing 
Gifford Pinchot from the Forestry Bureau. These controversies 
still further separated the President from the Progressive members 
of his party, to which group Garfield and Pinchot belonged. 

In the meantime (in June, 19 10) Mr. Roosevelt had returned 
from his African and European journey. He was disappointed at 
the President's course and believed it would hurt the Republican 
Party, but during a visit which Lucius B. Swift and I paid to 



1S8 THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT 

him at Oyster Bay he told us that he hoped his friends would not 
do anything which would make their ultimate support of Mr. 
Taft impossible, since it was extremely likely that he would be 
renominated, although it was not probable that he would be 
re-elected. At that time and for some time afterwards Mr. 
Roosevelt had no intention of running for the presidency himself. 
It seemed clear that Mr. Taft's policy was not to the liking of 
the people. In the election of 1910 the Democrats gained heavily 
in the House of Representatives, though the Progressive candi- 
dates suffered less than others. The breach between them and 
the President kept growing wider until finally a measure to reduce 
the tariff was passed by a coalition of Democrats and Progressives 
and vetoed by the President.^ 



THE REPUBLICAN NOMINATION IN I912 

In opposition to Mr. Taft's views, Col. Roosevelt declared him- 
self a Progressive. Since he had declined to be a candidate and 
had asked his friends to see to it that no movement was made to 
bring him forward, a conference of Progressive Republicans en- 
dorsed Senator La Follette. But a speaking tour throughout the 
country had ended disastrously for him, and it was found that his 
candidacy was impossible. There was now no one else to lead the 
Progressives with any chance of success, and Roosevelt at last, 
in the latter part of February, 1912, declared that "his hat was 
in the ring," and that he had determined to make the race. 

He was at once accused of ingratitude to Taft. The matter was 
considered as if it were a question of personal obligation and not 
of public duty. Yet it was Taft who had pledged himself to 
carry out the Roosevelt policies; and it was Roosevelt who had 
returned from Africa to find the President allied with his former 
opponents. Was Roosevelt now to discredit his own record, or 
was he to hold up the standard he had always maintained? If 
personal obligations could be considered, it was Taft and not 
Roosevelt who had first disregarded them. But the demands of 
public duty ought in any event to be paramount. 



^ As to the Trust question, see Chap. X, infra. 



THE REPUBLICAN NOMINATION IN 191 2 159 

Mr. Taft seemed to be quite unconscious of the real character 
of his political companionships. He declared in a conversation 
with an Indiana man, "I am just as much opposed to bosses as 
is your own wild fanatic, the untamed Col. Wm. Dudley Foulke." ^ 

And yet men like Penrose, Cannon, Aldrich, Lorimer, Guggen- 
heim, Hemenway, Gallinger, even George B. Cox, the boss of 
Cincinnati, and other politicians of similar character, were work- 
ing with all their might to get him nominated. They wanted 
an "opponent" with whom they could get on comfortably. 

It was about this time that Roosevelt addressed the Constitu- 
tional Convention of Ohio, then sitting at Columbus, and spoke 
in favour of direct primaries and of the initiative, referendum 
and recall, including the recall of decisions and even of judges. 
This last proposition exposed him to widespread criticism.^ 

There was a vigorous contest in the primaries and in the dis- 
trict nominating conventions between the Taft men and the 

2 Mr. Taft always called me "Colonel," but unless such a title from 
the Commander-in-Chief gave me a sort of brevet rank, I certainly 
could lay no claim to it. 

3 On March 7th, 1912, I wrote him as follows in regard to it: 

My Dear Mr. Roosevelt: 

. . . On one point only am I not prepared to follow, and that is the 
recall of the judges. Impeachment, as you say, is a failure, but im- 
peachment need not be the only remedy to secure the removal of an 
incompetent or unjust judge. The Supreme Court may well be made 
the tribunal for all inferior judges, leaving only the judges of that 
high tribunal themselves unaffected. These might be removed on a 
complaint by the executive and a finding by the Legislature, much like 
the present Massachusetts plan, except that some definite charges ought 
to be formulated and found true before judges are removed. The evil 
wrought by an occasional unjust, corrupt, or incompetent judge seems 
to me less than that attending a recall, which would inevitably tend to 
make a coward of every judge whenever he is called upon to do an 
unpopular thing. 

To this he answered : 

Dear Foulke: 

My attitude on the recall is exactly yours. As I said in the Colum- 
bus speech, I don't want to come to it, if there is any other way of 



i6o THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT 

Roosevelt men. Wherever the question was submitted to the 
Republican voters, as in Pennsylvania, Illinois, and even in Mr. 
Taft's own State of Ohio, Roosevelt carried all before him. But 
the State and district conventions, manipulated as they were by 
political leaders, were generally for Taft. Thus in Indianapolis 
the local chairman declared that the Roosevelt men would not 
be allowed to carry a single ward! He excluded the Roosevelt 
watchers from the polls, the primaries were packed, and Roose- 
velt did not get a single Indianapolis delegate to the State Con- 
vention. In that convention men who were fraudulently elected 
were allowed to sit in judgment upon each other's credentials, 
and thus delegates at large were chosen to the national conven- 
tion. In other States, Washington, California, Texas, Alabama, 
and elsewhere, similar frauds were committed. 

The campaign soon became bitter and personal. Charges were 
made by Roosevelt and Taft against each other. Taft declared 
Roosevelt had garbled his speeches, had not given him "a square 
deal," and had disregarded the promise not to accept another 
nomination. Roosevelt charged the President with violating con- 
fidential correspondence, with intentional misrepresentation, and 



achieving our purpose, but, of course, achieve the purpose we must. 
What we vifant to do is to remove from the bench men who are unfit, 
and not wait until they can be proved guilty of criminal acts. 

On March 17, 1912, I replied: 

Mv Deak Mr. Roosevelt: 

I don't believe we look on the recall quite alike. While I think 
there is another way to secure the removal of unfit judges and of 
course agree with you that that way should be adopted, yet if their 
removal cannot be secured in that manner, I think it would be far 
better to continue to submit to present evils rather than adopt a method 
which would tend to make a coward, a trimmer, and a time-server of 
every judge. Unfit judges are a serious abuse, but we would hardly 
reform such an abuse by assassination, and I doubt whether the fear 
of assassination would degrade the judiciary any more surely than 
the consciousness that they must depend for their continuance in office 
upon pleasing what may be the temporary whim of the people. The 
terril)lc example of the French Revolutionary tribunals, aptly cited 
in the Outlook, should warn us against such a course. 



PROGRESSIVE CONVENTION AND CAMPAIGN i6i 

with a responsibility for the alliance between crooked politics and 
crooked business; and he reminded the President: "It is a bad 
trait to bite the hand that feeds you." 

It remained to be decided by the Republican National Con- 
vention at Chicago whether the voters of the party or its ma- 
chine leaders and manipulators should nominate the President. 
There were 254 contested seats. The members of the National 
Committee, selected four years before and composed largely of 
reactionary politicians, some of whom had been discredited in 
their own States, now seated 235 Taft delegates. This gave Taft 
a majority on the preliminary roll call. The delegates thus seated 
voted in favour of each other's credentials, and Taft was nomi- 
nated.* 



THE PROGRESSIVE CONVENTION AND CAMPAIGN 

What would the Progressives do? Should they permit a con- 
vention controlled by fraud thus to deliver the party into the 
hands of its reactionary elements by the nomination of a candi- 
date who was not the choice of the vast majority of its members? 
Ought they thus to perpetuate misrule? They determined to or- 
ganise a party of their own. Mr. Roosevelt was under no illusions 
as to the probable outcome of this course. He wrote me on 
July ist that he felt the Democrats would probably win if a 
progressive man should be nominated, adding, "But of course there 
is no use of my getting into a fight in a half-hearted fashion, 
and I could not expect Republicans to follow me out if they were 
merely to endorse the Democratic Convention. So I hoisted the 
flag and will win or fall under it." 

Progressive conventions were held in the various States and 
districts, and delegates were sent to a national convention, which 
met on August 5th in Chicago. I was one of the delegates from 
my own district and was placed on the committee on resolutions 

* The fact that the party was misrepresented at this convention was 
clearly shown afterwards by the result at the polls, when Taft carried 
only two States in the electoral college, casting eight votes, while 
Roosevelt had 88 electoral votes and a majority over Taft of more 
than 600,000 at the polls. 



1 62 THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT 

to prepare the platform. Roosevelt, as the guest of the conven- 
tion, delivered what he called "A Confession of Faith." The 
convention Avas filled with a kind of religious enthusiasm which 
reached its climax when he concluded. 

The committee on resolutions had plenty to do on account 
of the great length of the platform and the vast number of 
questions considered. The original draft when read to us took 
more than an hour in delivery. I protested vigorously, and in our 
efforts to shorten and modify it we spent two whole nights, besides 
much of the intervening day. We got it down to less than half 
of its original dimensions, but it was still far too long. 

In spite of hard work we had a good time on that committee. 
Professor William Draper Lewis, of the University of Pennsyl- 
vania, was chairman and controlled our discussions with great 
skill. William Allen White, Chester Rowell, Gifford Pinchot and 
other enthusiastic souls made things as lively as possible and the 
final product was one of the most notable platforms ever adopted 
by a political convention.'^ 

It is astonishing, now that the Progressive Party is gone, to see 
how many of the things it advocated have been actually written 
into the laws either of the Federal Government or of various 
States. 

Again I took an active part in the campaign. The strongest 
attack made against Mr. Roosevelt was upon the ground that he 
was a candidate for a "third term." Mr. Taft had warned 
the people against the man who intended to hold office for 

^' It advocated direct primaries and the election by the people of 
United States Senators ; it recommended the States to adopt the short 
ballot and the initiative, referendum and recall. It demanded equal 
suffrage for v^romen ; civil-service reform ; the limitation and publi- 
cation of campaign funds both before and after elections ; registration 
of lobbyists; publicity of committee hearings; reform in legal proce- 
dure; legislation regarding industrial accidents, child labour, visage 
standards, women's labour, etc. It also called for agricultural credits 
and education ; a permanent Federal Commission for interstate corpo- 
rations; conservation of natural resources; a tariff which should 
equalise competition and with immediate downward revision of exces- 
sive schedules; a non-partisan scientific tariff commission; international 
arbitration and a national inheritance and income tax. 



PROGRESSIVE CONVENTION AND CAMPAIGN 163 

life, and the Democratic platform had favoured a single term 
and a constitutional amendment making a President ineligible 
for re-election. I considered this objection in my speeches and 
reminded my hearers that the question had been carefully weighed 
by the convention in Philadelphia when the Federal Constitu- 
tion was adopted.^ That convention finally held that there 
ought to be no limit as to the number of terms for which a 
candidate should be eligible. The reason Washington had de- 
clined a second re-election was not because it would have been 
injurious to the public, but because he was personally weary of 
continuous service and believed he was entitled to seek the repose 
of Mt. Vernon. 

It was further objected that since Roosevelt had said, when he 
was last elected in 1904, that he would not accept another term, 
he should therefore not accept it now, although he had been out 
of office four years. The thing he then had in mind was the 
question of successive terms, with the danger in the control of 
patronage which tliis might involve. But even if it had applied 
for all time, he had no right to bind himself to abstain from 
future service by such a declaration. When Washington laid down 
his command of the army at the end of the Revolution he stated 
in his circular letter to the Governors, his "determination of not 
taking any share in public business thereafter," but duty called 
him to the executive chair and he obeyed. Every criticism of 
Roosevelt for becoming a candidate on this ground would apply 
also to Washington. 

But neither the excellence of the Progressive platform nor of 
the candidate could offset the fact that the Democrats were 
united while their opponents were hopelessly divided. Woodrow 
Wilson was elected President by an enormous plurality, though 
not by a majority of all the votes. 

^ Jefferson thought that the holding of the Presidential office should 
be limited to a single term ; Washington thought otherwise, and in a 
letter to Lafaj-ette on April 28, 1788, said, "I confess I differ widely 
myself from Mr. Jefferson and you as to the necessity or expediency 
of rotation in that office. ... I can see no propriety in precluding 
ourselves from the services of any man who, in some great emergency, 
shall be deemed universally most capable of serving the public." 



i64 THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT 



THE FIRST WILSON ADMINISTRATION 

President Wilson called Congress to convene in special session 
on April 7, 19 13, and announced as the leading features of his 
policies: the revision of the tariff, a new banking and currency- 
system, and additional anti-trust legislation. These things were 
accomplished gradually, though as to anti-trust legislation the 
remedy was quite incomplete, while many things promised in the 
Democratic platform were ignored or repudiated. For instance, 
the platform had declared that the Government had no right nor 
power to impose duties, except for revenue; yet by the new tariff 
law there were special industries which were protected. The 
platform had favoured a single presidential term and had urged a 
constitutional amendment making the President ineligible for 
re-election and had pledged the candidate to this principle; but 
no such amendment was proposed by Congress, and the candidate 
thus pledged afterwards became a candidate for re-election. The 
party had denounced the waste of money under the Republican 
administration and had spent much more itself; it had promised 
legislation to prevent gambling in wheat and had failed to enact it; 
it had declared that "the law pertaining to the civil service should 
be honestly and rigidly enforced, to the end that merit and ability 
should be the standard of appointment and promotion rather 
than service rendered to a political party"; yet in spite of this 
assurance one law after another was passed creating new offices, 
which were all excepted from the civil service examinations, and 
the existing places of deputy revenue collectors and marshals were 
removed from the competitive system. In each case the Presi- 
dent signed the bills. Moreover, he permitted the fourth-class 
postmasterships and the rural free delivery service to be looted 
by politicians and to become the spoils of Congressmen,'' while 
important ambassadorships were given to men without diplomatic 
experience, who had been large contributors to Democratic cam- 
paign funds. These shortcomings convinced many who had been 
Progressives that the Democratic Party with Mr. Wilson at its 

' See "Fighting the Spoilsmen," pp. 233 to 242. 



THE FIRST WILSON ADMINISTRATION 165 

head ought not to be supported if there were any reasonable alter- 
native. 

The foreign policy of the administration was deplorable. In 
the platform it was said that "every American citizen in any 
foreign country must be given the full protection of the Govern- 
ment both for himself and for his property," yet when in Mex- 
ico hundreds of Americans were killed and women were ravished, 
the Government withheld this protection for years until a great 
body of our citizens residing in that country were compelled to 
flee, while their property was confiscated or destroyed. 

Then in August, 19 14, the great war broke out, and Belgium 
and France were invaded. Yet the President did nothing to pre- 
pare the country for the emergency nor to awaken the people 
to its perils. On the contrary, although our military and naval 
officers had warned him of the danger, although the Chief of 
Staff had urged an increase in the army from 93,000 to 500,000 
men, although Roosevelt, Congressman Gardner, and other patriotic 
men had upbraided Congress for its demented policy in neglecting 
to prepare, the President not only failed to urge the need of a 
greater armament, but actually discouraged its formation. In 
his message to Congress of December 8 he said: 

"We have never had, and while we retain our present principles and 
ideals we never shall have, a large standing army . . . and especially, 
when half the world is on fire, we shall be careful to make our moral 
insurance against the spread of the conflagration very definite and 
certain and adequate indeed." 

He would give the rudiments of drill to volunteers and encourage 
National Guards, but, he added, "More than this carries with it 
a reversal of the whole history and character of our polity. . . . 
We shall not alter our attitude toward the subject because some 
among us are nervous and excited." 

After a year and a half had elapsed and popular opinion all 
over the country, more alert than the President, had come to 
demand adequate preparation, Mr. Wilson took the alarm and 
in his speech at Chicago he announced that peace and the honour 
of the country might become incompatible; at St. Louis he 
demanded that America should have "incomparably the largest 
navy in the world!" 



1 66 THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT 

As to the army, the Secretary of War, Mr. Garrison, proposed 
a plan which Mr. Wilson approved, but when he met with oppo- 
sition in Congress, the President relinquished it and Garrison 
resigned. The act which passed, providing for a State militia 
aided by a Federal subsidy, was utterly inadequate and greatly 
resembled "pork barrel" legislation. It seemed to many that 
the party and the President that adopted this as a measure of 
defence ought not to be continued in power. 

Meanwhile the President gave warnings to the German Govern- 
ment, but failed to make them good. The Lusitanla was de- 
stroyed and more than one hundred Americans were drowned, 
yet four days afterwards, while our people were stirred to the 
depths by this outrage the Presiden* in a speech at Philadelphia 
declared: 

"The example of America must be the example, not merely of peace, 
because it will not fight, but of peace because peace is the healing and 
elevating influence of the world and strife is not. There is such a thing 
as a man being too proud to fight; there is such a thing as a nation 
being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that 
it is right." 

Germany justified the sinking of the Lusitania, and the admin- 
istration replied that any repetition of such an act must be 
regarded by oiu* Government as "deliberately unfriendly." On 
March 24, 19 16, the Sussex was sunk in the English Channel 
and more American citizens were killed. Our Government now 
declared that unless Germany abandoned her methods of sub- 
marine warfare against passenger and freight vessels, the United 
States would sever diplomatic relations. Germany replied that 
orders had been issued that merchant vessels should not be sunk 
without warning and without saving human lives unless an attempt 
were made to escape or offer resistance. Germany at the same 
time insisted that the United States should make certain demands 
upon Great Britain and declared that if these were not com- 
plied with Germany "must demand complete liberty of decision." 
Our Government answered that our rights must not be contingent 
upon the conduct of any other nation. To this Germany made 
no reply, and it was evident that the destruction of merchant 
vessels might be resumed at any time. Such was the unsatisfac- 



THE CAMPAIGN OF jgi6 167 

tory condition of our foreign relations when the Presidential cam- 
paign of 19 I 6 began. 



THE CAMPAIGN OF I916 

The Republican and Progressive National conventions were 
both held in Chicago on June 7th, the former in the Coliseum, 
and the latter in the Auditorium. Among the Progressives no 
candidate was spoken of but Roosevelt. Among the Republicans 
there were a number of "favourite sons," but it was clear to 
many of us in the Progressive Convention that Mr. Justice 
Hughes, of the United States Supreme Court, was their most 
available man. He had, however, declared that he was totally 
opposed to the use of his name, and he had made no announce- 
ment of his political belief. Some weeks before the convention I 
had written to Mr. Perkins, the chairman of the Progressive 
National Committee, as follows: 

Dear Sir: 

I have been thinking much of what should be the course of our 
Progressive Convention at Chicago. It seems to be quite probable 
that Hughes may be the nominee of the Republican Convention. He 
will hardly make a declaration of his principles before the convention 
is held or before he is nominated. To nominate a man without know- 
ing authoritatively what he stands for would, on the face of it, be 
monstrous. But it is likely that if he be nominated he will express 
his views at once. . . . But if our convention should wait until Justice 
Hughes gives this expression, and it should be favourable to the things 
we stand for, it might weaken us to oppose him with knowledge of 
this fact. 

It would therefore seem to me that our convention ought to act 
instantly, if it should learn of Hughes' nomination, and, with a 
declaration of the absurdity of nominating a candidate whose views 
were unknown, should immediately nominate Roosevelt by acclama- 
tion, and leave with him the determination of the question whether, 
after further knowledge of Justice Hughes' intentions, he should sup- 
port him or run himself upon the Progressive ticket. ... I think Mr. 
Roosevelt would be better qualified, later on, to do what circumstances 
demand than the Progressive Convention would be to take final action. 

It was a good deal in this way that matters developed in the 
convention. 



i68 THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT 

The intense desire of that convention was to secure the nomi- 
nation of Roosevelt by both Progressives and Republicans. On 
the other hand, the Republicans were determined that he should 
not be the candidate. Many of them would have preferred Wil- 
son. Their object was to find a way to reject Roosevelt and 
yet offer a nominee who would attract the Progressive vote. In 
the Progressive Convention all was enthusiasm ; in the Republican 
Convention, where the delegates had been "hand picked" from 
the regulars in the party, there was little enthusiasm but a great 
deal of calculation. Most of the Progressives wanted to nomi- 
nate Roosevelt, and then adjourn and let the Republicans accept 
their candidate or face defeat, but the managers desired the union 
of the two parties under Roosevelt if possible; but if not, then 
under some one whom the Progressives could accept. Conferences 
were held through a joint committee, but without result. Bal- 
loting began in the Republican Convention, and on Saturday 
morning it became certain that Hughes would be nominated. 
About thirty seconds before this was done, Roosevelt was nomi- 
nated by acclamation by the Progressives. 

But now Roosevelt sent word that if an immediate decision was 
desired, he would decline. He suggested that the decision should 
be placed in the hands of the Progressive National Committee, 
and that if Mr. Hughes made a satisfactory declaration they 
should treat the refusal as definite. If not so satisfied, the com- 
mittee could then determine what action would be appropriate. 
This telegram fell like a death blow upon the convention, and 
there was widespread indignation. Many were ready to denounce 
the man whose praises they had just been singing. 

Justice Hughes' statement of principles was satisfactory, and 
Roosevelt wrote to the Progressive National Committee definitely 
declining the nomination and giving his reasons for supporting 
Hughes.^ 

* The majority of the committee took a coiir5>e similar to that of Mr. 
Roosevelt, bi'.t there was serious dissent. The Indiana State Committee 
repudiated his action. I wrote to him, telling him what they had done 
and in his answer, dated July 5th he said : 

"For nearly two years I have been attacking Wilson as no Republi- 
can has attacked him, and I attacked him for a year when most of 



THE CAMPAIGN OF igi6 169 

My health was such that I could not take an active part in the 
campaign, but I contributed to its literature. Mr. Hughes' per- 
sonal canvass was unimpressive, and he was defeated by a very 
close vote. 

President Wilson had now reversed his policy in regard to mak- 
ing adequate preparation for national defence. At the same time 
his election was largely due to the support of the pacifists, who 
reminded us all through the campaign that he had "kept us out 
of war." In one respect his election was not so serious a misfor- 
tune as it seemed at the time, because the anti-war element was 
greatest in the Democratic Party and could best be controlled 
by a Democratic President who had sympathised with it. At all 
events, when the war came on, the country was successful in unit- 
ing all parties in support of the Government. 

the Republicans, including Mr. Taft, were inclined to support him. 
The Progressives who then supported me and who insisted upon my 
nomination must have done so, if they were intelligent and sincere, 
because I represented extreme hostility to Wilson. It is therefore now 
utterly incomprehensible how these men can support Wilson." 

The men who controlled the Indiana organisation, however, did not 
represent the great mass of the Progressives in the State, and Hughes 
carried Indiana by a large majority. 



CHAPTER X 

THE TRUSTS 

No might of arms can work thine overthrow, 

No foreign conquest nor domestic strife; 
Yet though thy shield be stout to foil the foe 

Poison may lurk within to waste thy life. 
Thine affluence offers in its golden bowl 

A deadlier bane than penury's bitterest gall. 
Let not the thirst for riches taint thy soul 

To spread its fell corruption over all. 

— Ad Rempublicam. 
See infra, pp. 177, 178. 

THE CHICAGO CONFERENCES 

As far back as the administration of President McKinley the 
problem of the trusts began to crystallise into three sets of 
opinions: the first in favour of letting them alone, the second of 
exterminating them, and the third of controlling and regulating 
them. I believed the last to be the best plan. A conference of 
economists and publicists was called by the Civic Federation to 
meet at Chicago, September 13, 1899. It lasted four days. Every 
conceivable point of view was represented. I had been asked to 
prepare an address to be delivered on the afternoon of the 15th, 
but it was crowded out, and I was put on the programme for 
the first address in the evening. Just as I was stepping upon 
the stage a friend met me. 

"I congratulate you on that speech," he said. 

"What speech?" I asked. 

"The one you delivered here this afternoon," he replied. 

"But I made no speech this afternoon," I rejoined. 

"Here it is," he answered, and showed me in an evening paper 
more than two columns of what I was alleged to have said. The 
reporter had asked me for an advance copy and the city editor, 
not knowing of the change in the programme, had published nearly 

170 



THE CHICAGO CONFERENCES 171 

in full the things I was just going to say! I imagined tkat many 
in that audience must have seen it and to repeat to them the 
things they had just read — that was unthinkable. What was to 
be done? Luckily I had other material on hand, nearly enough 
for a second speech, and by good fortune there was just a little 
of my copy which the paper had not used. So by piecing the 
two together I could still make a presentable address. I had 
only a few moments to arrange my material, but it was enough. 

The audience was an inspiring one. W. Bourke Cockran and 
Wm. Jennings Bryan had both been advertised to speak, so the 
hall was packed to the doors. I was able to go on swimmingly 
until Mr. Cockran entered amid applause which suspended my 
observations. I began again, but it was not long till Mr. Bryan 
appeared, at which there was a still greater demonstration. After 
it ended I told the audience that I knew quite well they had 
come to hear others and that I would bring my remarks to a 
close. A voice from the middle of the orchestra cried "Good!" 
This seemed pointed enough, though not remarkably polite, and 
in a minute more I was done. 

The audience, however, as I concluded, showed me a good deal 
of cordiality. 

Next day a gentleman came up to the place where I was sitting 
and in a rather sheepish manner said: 

"Mr. Foulke, I want to apologise." 

I asked him why. 

"I am the man," he said, "who cried 'good' during your speech 
last night. I meant that what you had been saying was good — 
not that it was good you were going to stop. But neither you nor 
anybody else seemed to understand it that way." 

I thanked him for his explanation, but I realised then as never 
before the importance of putting punctuation in the right place. 

Mr. Cockran made an elaborate and brilliant address, urging 
that the trusts should be deprived of all special favours and 
that publicity should be required, but insisting that otherwise 
they might safely be allowed to conduct their operations. 

On the following morning Mr. Bryan spoke. A monopoly in 
private hands, he said, was indefensible. The removal of the 
tariff or of railroad discriminations would not obliterate the 



172 THE TRUSTS 

trusts. The remedy he proposed was that Congress should pass 
a law providing that no corporation organised in any State should 
do business outside that State until it received a license 
granted only on condition that the corporation should show: first, 
that there was no water in its stock; second, that publicity in its 
business was provided for; third, that it had not maintained 
and was not attempting to secure a monopoly. If any of these 
conditions were violated the license should be revoked. 

In the afternoon there was an open debate, and I seized the 
occasion to criticise Mr. Bryan's plan, insisting that even if 
a license should be refused and corporations should be 
forbidden to do business outside the State where they were or- 
ganised, this would not annihilate the trusts. They might sell 
their goods to a middleman, who, if he should become the owner 
of property lawfully manufactured in his own State, could not, 
under our Federal Constitution, be excluded from selling it in 
other States. The States had been passing laws for the abolition 
of trusts for more than ten years, yet all these, as well as the 
Federal act, had been found ineffective. The Supreme Court 
of the United States in the Knight case — the case of the Sugar 
Trust — had decided that the Sherman Anti-Trust Law applied 
only to the agencies controlling transportation, and had indi- 
cated that the Constitution had given Congress no power over 
manufacturing trusts, and that the Sherman Act had not pro- 
hibited them. To do this, therefore, an amendment to the Con- 
stitution would be required. This would have to be adopted by 
two-thirds of both houses of Congress and ratified by three-fourths 
of all the States. It would be very hard to secure such an amend- 
ment. . . . 

I thus continued: 



It seems to me that if all corporations could be destroyed (which 
T think is impossible) we could not even then abolish the trusts. If 
the Standard Oil Company were dissolved, the men who control it 
might organise a partnership to carry on the same business in the 
same way. Or if that would involve too great a risk, what is there 
to prevent the stockholders of the great companies from loaning the 
value of their stock to some manager, agreeing to receive in lieu of 
interest a proportionate part of the profits of the joint adventure? 



THE CHICAGO CONFERENCES 173 

If you abolish one form of combination, another will take its place. 
When you propose to annihilate trusts you are proposing to destroy 
the tendency of men to unite, and it is just as impossible to destroy 
that as it is to annihilate the law of gravitation. 

But although we cannot annihilate the trusts, we may regulate and 
restrain their injurious influences. You cannot stop the Mississippi 
by a dam, but you may conduct it into safer and more convenient 
channels. 

To this Mr. Bryan replied: 

I do not agree with the gentleman that you cannot annihilate a 
monopoly. I believe it is possible to do so. . . , 

The Supreme Court in deciding the Knight case did not say that a 
broader law than the present one would be unconstitutional. 

It is true there are things in the decision which suggest that, but 
until that question is presented to the Court, you cannot say that the 
Court has passed upon it. It is also true that Justice Harlan in his 
dissenting opinion, assumed that a broader law would be held uncon- 
stitutional, but no one has a right to say that if such a law as I sug- 
gest were passed and reviewed by the Supreme Court, it would be 
held unconstitutional. 

But suppose the law is passed and held unconstitutional ; then we can 
amend the Constitution. 

The gentleman suggests that it is a difficult thing to get two-thirds 
of both houses and three-fourths of the States to favour such an 
amendment. That is true; it is a difficult thing, but if the people want 
to destroy the trusts they can control two-thirds of both houses and 
three-fourths of the States. 

It had been intended that resolutions should be passed express- 
ing the sense of the Conference, and Mr. Bryan insisted upon this, 
but the differences were so pronounced that it could not be done. 
The only remedy upon which all seemed united was greater pub- 
licity for business transactions. 

But the resolutions which Mr. Bryan failed to secure from 
the Conference he succeeded in securing from the Democratic 
National Convention in the following year, and his proposal be- 
came one of the issues of the campaign. 

He was overwhelmingly defeated by McKinley, and his scheme 
for the extermination of the trusts was indefinitely postponed in 
favour of the more reasonable plan of endeavouring to regulate 
and control their harmful activities. McKinley's early death and 



174 THE TRUSTS 

the succession of Roosevelt were followed by active measures look- 
ing toward this regulation. The Department of Commerce and 
the Bureau of Corporations were established, and investigations 
were made which showed the oppressive methods adopted by the 
Standard Oil Company and similar organisations. The bill for- 
bidding rebates was enacted as well as the meat inspection bill, 
while the rate bill and other regulative and restrictive measures 
were set on foot. 

In October, 1907, another conference on the subject of the 
trusts was held in Chicago; I was again invited to participate 
and suggested the following plan for Government regulation of 
industrial monopolies: 

Whenever a corporation is accused of exercising monopolistic powers 
and injuriously controlling rates, driving competitors out of the mar- 
ket by arbitrary reductions, preferring one set of customers to another, 
or one section of the community to another, and so far suppressing 
competition that it can maintain its unjust rates and discriminations; 
acting, in other words, oppressively either to rivals or to the public, 
provision should be made for a suit to be brought before an appro- 
priate tribunal. Let the object of that suit be, not to dissolve the cor- 
poration, which is useless, or to confiscate its property, which is 
ruinous, but to declare it a monopoly and to subject it for that reason 
to the same Governmental control as to rates, prices, purchases, sales, 
reports and general conduct as railways and other public-service cor- 
porations. 



TRUSTS IN THE CAMPAIGN OF I908 

In the campaign of 1908 with Taft on one side and Bryan on 
the other, the trust question again came to the front. Mr. Bryan 
had by this time developed his original license system for exter- 
minating the trusts into something far more elaborate and impos- 
sible. The Democratic platform proposed that whenever a corpo- 
ration controlled twenty-five per cent of the product in any line 
of industry it should be required to take out a Federal license to 
conduct an interstate business, and that this license should pro- 
hibit it from controlling more than fifty per cent of the product. 
It would be hard to conceive of a crazier plan for abolishing the 
trusts. A special census of the particular industry would be re- 



PRACTICAL REMEDIES I7S 

quirea, entailing enormous labour and expense, before the pre- 
liminary question could be settled, whether the corporation 
was bound to take out a license at all. And when the license 
was procured, what was accomplished? The corporation was 
prohibited from controlling more than half of any product. An- 
other census would have to be taken to find when that point was 
reached. The licensed corporations were to oscillate between 
twenty-five and fifty per cent. But suppose the second census 
were taken and it were proved that a corporation controlled sixty 
per cent, what then? It could be dissolved. The owners and 
managers would then create new organisations with their wives, 
relatives, friends and business associates in charge of "competing" 
concerns which would carry on business and oppress the public 
just as before. But all this could already be done under the 
Sherman Act! Mr. Bryan's plan was the most elaborate and ex- 
pensive scheme for accomplishing nothing that had ever found 
entrance into the platform of a great political party. 

It was natural that upon such an issue the Democratic candi- 
date should be overwhelmingly defeated. 

Voluntary Federal incorporation was the measure advocated by 
President Taft. It struck me as utterly futile. When the Presi- 
dent came out with his measure filled with this tempting provender 
and shook it under the noses of the trusts, would they begin to 
eat and let him put the halter arownd their necks? Some of the 
younger and greener ones might do so, but the old grey fellows 
would kick their heels in the air and trot off the other way. 
Nothing but a good strong cowboy's lasso could ever haul them 
in. No great monopoly that really needed to be regulated would 
voluntarily incorporate. Mr. Taft's remedy for the abuses of 
the trusts was to give them an additional privilege, to be accepted 
or rejected at their option! 

PRACTICAL REMEDIES 

But while we had been thus debating and theorising, other coun- 
tries had been acting. Canada had provided for an investigation 
which should determine whether a given "combine" was a harmful 
monopoly, and Germany had shown the kind of governmental 



176 THE TRUSTS 

regulation to be applied where a monopoly actually existed.^ If 
America would combine the essential features of Canadian and 
German legislation the problem would be solved. 

I advocated this solution of the trust question on various public 
occasions, among others at a meeting of the Civic Federation in 
New York on January 12, 1911. In a subsequent issue of the 
Outlook in this same month Theodore Roosevelt referred with 
approval to this method of controlling the trusts. He said: "I 
think that the powers of the Bureau of Corporations should be so 
extended as to enable it to apply to the gigantic business combi- 
nations participating in the commerce between the States the same 
kind of Federal regulation which is now applied to the railways 
through the Interstate Commerce Commission. Mr. William 
Dudley Foulke has worked out this idea admirably in his recent 
speech to the National Civic Federation and has shown that all 
that is necessary for us to do is to combine and slightly improve 
upon what has already been done in Canada and Germany in 
this matter. 

"Where competition is really free, competition is still the best 

1 In Canada by "The Combines' Investigation Act" six persons might 
make application to a judge for an investigation, and if this was 
ordered, the minister of labour appointed three persons to conduct 
the enquiry, one on the recommendation of the applicants, another on 
the recommendation of the parties accused, and a third on the recom- 
mendation of the two members so chosen. This third man must be 
a judge. Whenever it was found to the satisfaction of the governor 
in Council that a combine existed to promote unduly the advantages 
of the manufacturers or dealers at the expense of consumers and that 
this was facilitated by customs duties, he might direct that the articles 
affected be admitted duty free. Or if the holder of a patent injured 
trade and unduly lessened production or enhanced prices the minister 
of justice might cause the patent to be revoked. If a person reported 
as guilty continued to offend he was liable to a penalty of a thousand 
dollars for each day after ten days from the publication of the decision. 

Where a monopoly was actually established Germany applied the 
remedy. For there a law had been passed regulating the production 
of potash, of which that country had a monopoly, owned and operated 
by fifty-four companies which were overproducing and depleting the 
supply. The act fixed the proportion which each company might pro- 
duce, the labour conditions and the maximum prices and provided a 
court to reapportion this production every two years. 



PRACTICAL REMEDIES 177 

fixer of prices and regulator of conduct; but where competition 
is in reality stifled, and one great concern gets the power to fix 
prices of labour and commodities, then the Government should 
receive the power to exercise administrative control over the con- 
cern and should exercise that power just as freely as if the con- 
cern were one of the so-called natural monopolies like a street 
railway or a water company. . . . The proceeding should be, in 
substance, to declare any corporation an injurious monopoly, and 
when that declaration should be definitely affirmed by the proper 
body, whatever it might be, to subject the corporation to thorough- 
going governmental control as to rates, prices and general con- 
duct." 

Some two months later, at a meeting of the Western Economic 
Society at Chicago I discussed more in detail the kind of con- 
trol which ought to be exercised by an interstate trade or indus- 
trial commission (as the successor of the Bureau of Corporations) 
in cases where the monopoly involved had been shown to be guilty 
of an injurious restraint of trade. 

On September 26, 1914, an act was passed establishing a Fed- 
eral Trade Commission to deal with associations (except banks 
and common carriers) which used "unfair methods of competition 
in commerce," but its determinations had to be enforced by a 
Federal Court and were subject to an appeal, while the scope of 
the Anti-Trust laws was not greatly extended. IMuch of the 
work of the commission corresponded to that of a master in 
chancery in a Federal Court. 

The measures which will ultimately be needed for the control 
of injurious monopolies have not yet been taken. It is realised 
that Government control may be necessary to protect the public 
from the domination of organised labour as well as from the 
tyranny of concentrated capital, and it is clear that if the great 
industries of the country are to remain in private hands such 
control will have to be provided by law. 

I have always thought that this problem of the trusts was a 
vital one, not simply because these combinations of capital 
brought in their train monopoly and injustice, but because they 
were part of a general tendency toward the accumulation of vast 
wealth in the hands of the few. This, if it goes on unhindered, 



178 THE TRUSTS 

is bound in the end to take the real power of government from 
the body of the people and give it to a favoured class, thus creat- 
ing an oligarchy in place of a democracy. I had been deeply 
impressed by the lesson taught in the history of the decline and 
fall of many free communities and nations from this cause, and 
I embodied the most striking examples in ancient as in later times 
in my address to the Civic Federation, setting forth the peril which 
these illustrations foreshadowed. Some will say that the analogies 
are remote and the danger exaggerated. Others will believe that 
a more immediate danger is threatened by the vast combinations 
of workingmen and by the propaganda of the more radical repre- 
sentatives of labour. But unless the record of the decay of 
liberty in the past has been falsely written, the menace of the 
ultimate overthrow of popular institutions from the growth and 
concentration of wealth cannot be disregarded. A careful con- 
sideration of what the past should teach us in regard to this vital 
question is necessary for our national safety. 



CHAPTER XI 
THE LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE 

God speed the day when the advancing hours 

Shall bring the world a league of sovereign powers, 

Wherein the right of single states shall bend 

To the just will of all, and the decrees 

Of some great world tribunal be the end 

Of wasteful war's superfluous cruelties. 

My country, lead thou in these paths of peace I 

But till that hour shall come let not soft ease 

Relax thy spirit or subdue thy soul. 

Until mankind shall reach this loftier goal, 

Keep thou thy sword unsheathed, for thou dost hold 

Within thy fruitful body precious seed 

Which shall into a newer life unfold 

And save the world in its extremest need. 

Two lessons have been thine to teach mankind, 

Freedom, then Union! Send thy heralds forth 

Bearing thy later message till thou find 

Peace, born of Union, spread o'er all the earth. 

— Centennial Ode, 1916. 

PRELIMINARY ORGANISATIONS 

I had been interested for many years before the outbreak of 
the great war in the question of preserving the peace of the 
world, but the Utopian ideas then current offered no practical 
remedy. On April 3, 1906, a conference of the Inter-Collegiate 
Peace Association was held in Richmond at Earlham College, an 
institution under the control of Friends, and naturally hospitable 
to propaganda in favour of peace. I was asked to speak and, 
believing that some arguments upon the other side might add 
zest to the discussion. I appeared as the advocatus diaholi, pre- 
senting various reasons for war as given to me by the devil in 
a dream. I spoke of the evolution through strife of all organic 

179 



i8o THE LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE 

life; of the degeneration which followed long periods of peace, 
especially at the time of the decay of the Roman Empire; of 
the helplessness of the peace-loving Chinese; of the need of fur- 
nishing some substitute for the courage which war developed; 
but I finally concluded my address with an argument which was 
not suggested to me by my diabolical companion, in favour of an 
international tribunal to decide controversies in some other way 
than by the sword. My comments were treated with great good 
nature by my peace-loving auditors, but I do not recollect that 
the devil's arguments were answered. 

At a later period, when men prominent in public life began 
to take part in the movement, there was still a good deal that 
was visionary in their efforts. Some demanded the immediate 
reduction of armaments, as if nations could be expected to disarm 
before they had any other means of securing justice. Others pro- 
posed the neutralisation of particular territories, a measure which 
had already been unsuccessful in several cases,^ and which was 
destined to a still greater failure in respect to Belgium. Others 
relied on the propagation of peace principles, unmindful of the 
fact that this had been one of the aims of Christianity for two 
thousand years and was still unsuccessful. 

But if we sought to substitute for war, arbitration and judicial 
decision, there was a real gain. 

Arbitration had already been tried in a good many cases, and 
war had never followed, and if a permanent court could be sub- 
stituted for this more temporary expedient, even better results 
might be hoped for. 

But there would still be lacking a most important feature — the 
executive power to enforce the decrees of the court. Some said 
that international public opinion would be sufficient. Public 
opinion is more effective and definite in smaller units than in 
larger ones, and international public opinion is not nearly as 
strong as national public opinion. It might be strong enough 
to induce the most highly developed nations not wantonly to break 
the clear terms of a solemn treaty, and perhaps strong enough 
to prevent a nation which liad voluntarily submitted a case to 

^ E.g., Cracow, Samoa, the Congo. 



PRELIMINARY ORGANISATIONS i8i 

arbitration from repudiating the award, if no very vital interest 
was affected. But on the whole the compelling power of inter- 
national public opinion is rather a hope for the future than the 
attainment of the present. 

The substantial foundations for this hope were well illustrated, 
however, by the growth of public opinion in our own country in 
reference to the Federal Supreme Court. The Constitution gave 
that court jurisdiction in cases between States and the citizens of 
other States, yet when it was held, in Chisholm against Georgia, 
that this authorised the citizen of one State to sue another State, 
Georgia successfully defied the judgment of the court. In like 
manner Pennsylvania resisted the court's decree in the case of the 
sloop Active, and in the Cherokee case Georgia again defied the 
court's decision that a State law was unconstitutional, and in this 
defiance was supported by President Jackson. Again in 1859, 
a man, convicted in Wisconsin for violating the fugitive slave law, 
was liberated by the State court on the ground that the law was 
unconstitutional, though the Federal Supreme Court had held the 
contrary. In all these cases the public opinion of a particular 
State would not permit the enforcement of the decrees of the 
Federal tribunal. 

Yet the Supreme Court has constantly grown in power, and 
no State would now resist its decrees. The court has never yet 
applied to any other authority than public opinion to carry out 
a judgment against a State, but it may well be that the fear of 
other powers in reserve helped to form and strengthen that 
opinion. 

While we could not hope that public opinion would grow so 
readily among nations differing in language, blood and social 
usages far more than the homogeneous States of the Federal union, 
yet if an international court should act with as much wisdom 
and justice as had characterised the decisions of our own tribunal, 
international public opinion would gradually grow until the bulk 
of its decisions would be respected and enforced. In order that 
such a result should be attained, the court should not be over- 
loaded with too large a jurisdiction at the outset. The thing to 
do was to get the court and then enlarge its jurisdiction as the 
way should open and public opinion should become ripe. 



i82 THE LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE 

Nor was it desirable that all the nations should at once co- 
operate in the formation of this tribunal. It would be far better 
to let it be composed of judges from those nations only whose 
history and institutions should give reasonable hope that they 
would submit to its decrees. 

But something still more specific should be done in support 
of its decisions. The nations taking part in its organisation 
should mutually guarantee that they should be enforced. Of 
course there would be nothing but international public opinion 
behind such an agreement, but public opinion is generally much 
stronger in favour of the fulfilment of a specific promise than of 
a general duty. 

I urged these views at various meetings of the Society for the 
Judicial Settlement of International Disputes, at two Mohonk 
conferences, and at a conference held in Cleveland, in 191 5, to 
consider the subject of a world court and an International League. 
It seemed to me that the establishment of such a court would not 
only be desirable of itself, but still more desirable as a step in 
that great movement which might lead at last to a federation of 
mankind; that in the future the world was bound to become at 
some time either a consolidated empire or a federation of nations. 
The development of the family into the clan, of the clan into the 
tribe, of the tribe into the nation, and then the union of inde- 
pendent States into great federated republics and great empires — 
this development left only one step Sttill to be taken, and by all 
the analogies of sociology and history the world would be sure 
to take it. 

THE LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE 

It was about this time, considerably after the outbreak of the 
war, but before we had become engaged in the struggle, that an 
association was proposed to promote the peace of the world by 
means of an international league. At the head of this move- 
ment was ex-President Taft, and prominent among its counsels 
were A. Lawrence Lowell, Alton B. Parker, Oscar S. Straus, Theo- 
dore Marburg, and Hamilton Holt. 

A call was issued and the plan proposed was that all justiciable 



THE LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE 183 

controversies should be referred to an international tribunal for 
decision, and non-justiciable questions to a Council of Concilia- 
tion for recommendation and report, and that both the economic 
and military forces of the signatory powers were to be employed 
against any of them that committed acts of hostility against 
another, before the controversy should be so submitted, and for 
a reasonable time after the court had decided or the Council had 
reported. Further rules of international law were to be formu- 
lated by conference between the powers.^ 

On June 17, 19 15, the "League to Enforce Peace" (as it was 
called) was accordingly organised at Philadelphia, in Independ- 
ence Hall. William H. Taft became its president and A. Lawrence 
Lowell, president of Harvard, chairman of its executive commit- 
tee. I was present at the time of its organisation and stated what 
I considered was the initial difficulty in the call. What were 
justiciable questions? The few cases decided had failed to give 
any complete classification. The twilight zone of the undeter- 
mined was still very extensive. 

2 Mr. Roosevelt had declined to take part in this organisation. I 
was invited to join it and on June 4, 1915, I wrote to Mf. Roosevelt 
enclosing a copy of the proposals and saj'ing: 

"I want to write you about the League of Peace, proposed by Taft, 
Alton B. Parker, etc. I was invited to speak at the Cleveland Con- 
ference and did so, approving of the main features of the within pro- 
posals but taking issue upon the proposition that all justiciable questions 
should be submitted to a World Court for judgment, both upon its 
merits and as to any issue of jurisdiction. 

"I quite agree with your position in 'America and the World War' 
that the nations ought first to agree as to certain elementary rights 
which should not be questioned, and then submit all other questions 
to the World Court. If a court can pass on what questions are jus- 
ticiable and what are not, it may decide anything to be justiciable — 
the right to exclude aliens, or to regulate domestic affairs, for instance 
— and no nation could afford to agree in advance thus to surrender 
something which might include its whole sovereignty. I don't think 
all questions affecting honour and vital interests ought to be excepted. 
That would allow a nation to call any subject a matter of honour 
or vital interest and so escape submission. But it ought to be agreed 
in advance just what things are not to be submitted and then let all 
the rest go in. For instance, we could not submit the Monroe Doc- 



i84 THE LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE 

I insisted that there ought to be certain things specifically 
excepted from the jurisdiction of this tribunal. Every nation 
would insist that its territorial integrity should not be questioned, 
nor its right to manage its own affairs in its own way — to deter- 
mine, for instance, what immigrants it would receive. Such 
matters ought, therefore, to be specified in the treaty which created 
the court and ought to be excluded from submission. 

Therefore, upon my motion, an amendment was made to the 
article, referring to the court all justiciable controversies, by add- 
ing the words, "Subject to the limitations of treaties." Thus the 
particular questions which each nation was unwilling to refer 
would first be specified in the treaty and excepted from such ref- 
erence. 

The main purpose of the plan proposed was to provide a breath- 
ing time in which to settle controversies before the beginning of 
hostilities. And the provisions were valuable, not so much from 
their immediate effect, as on account of the prospect they offered 
for a closer union of the nations. This league might finally de- 



trine; that is necessary to our national defence, and we could not let 
any court take it away from us, as an international court certainly 
would do if it had a free hand in the matter. So, too, Japan might 
well except from submission the question whether Western powers 
should acquire additional territory in the Far East. These matters, 
as you say, should be guaranteed in the initial treaty. . . . 

"Now I was asked to join in calling the League of Peace Conference 
in Independence Hall on June 17th to discuss the Taft proposals. The 
letter wanted me to sign an approval of those proposals. This I 
declined to do, stating my objections, but saying that in other respects 
I was in favour of the movement. They accordingly put me down 
as one of the callers of the Conference, and I expect to attend and 
state my objections there if I have the opportunity to do so." 

To this Mr. Roosevelt answered on June i6th: 
"Deak Foulke: 

"Of course I agree absolutely with your letter. You have stated the 
reason why I declined to take part in that Conference. I hope that 
you will take part, in view of your name having been appended to the 
call, and be able to make your statement just as you outlined it; 
and I will try also to make a statement to the same effect. . . ." 



THE LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE 185 

velop (like the United States under the Articles of Confederation) 
into a more perfect union, the initial defects being gradually reme- 
died as they became apparent.^ 

After the United States entered the war, our executive com- 
mittee prepared a number of tentative suggestions for a proposed 
League of Nations and submitted them to President Wilson but, 
at his request, we refrained from giving them publicity. 

It was hard to find out what the President favoured. If he 
had any definite proposals he apparently did not desire co- 
operation, but merely ratification of such things as he saw fit to 
do. After the armistice was signed and he went abroad the 
people were left as much in the dark as ever as to what kind of 



3 Early in 1917 (nearly two years after the organisation of the 
League to Enforce Peace) Mr. Roosevelt made some severe strictures 
in the Metropolitan Magazine, and elsewhere, upon those who were 
connected with it. The League, he said, was supported by too many 
professional pacifists whose influence was an unmixed evil. He spoke 
of it as a mischievous sham, because it had not adopted obligatory 
military training. It would be wicked to make such promises as it 
proposed until after we had built up a military force that would make 
them effective. Under it the Monroe Doctrine could be submitted to 
an arbitral tribunal, in which Chinese and Turkish judges might deliver 
the casting votes. 

On March 19th I wrote him reminding him that he had hoped I 
would take part in it and propose the amendment that it should be sub- 
ject to the limitations of treaties, these treaties to contain the vital 
matters which we would not submit. I had done so, the amendment 
was adopted, and I had accordingly joined the League and had been 
placed on its executive committee, and that I did not altogether ap- 
preciate being included in his criticism that agitation in favour of this 
movement was infamous and against international morality, or that 
the League proposed a quack nostrum and that it was wicked to agi- 
tate for it. I added: 

"In your article on 'Utopia or Hell,' in the book 'America and the 
World War,' I think you stood for substantially this principle, as your 
letter to me of June i6th would indicate, and further think that you 
are mistaken in considering that the bulk of the men controlling the 
movement are pacifists. Indeed, at the last meeting of the executive 
committee a few days since it seemed to me none of them were, and 
I enclose resolutions passed at different times which indicate that this 
has never been its attitude. It refused to take part in a recent peace 



i86 THE LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE 

a league he desired. The negotiations were secret, and little was 
known as to which of the provisions of the Covenant were due 
to his initiative and which to the insistence of others. 



THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 

The final covenant included in the Versailles treaty differed 
widely from any of the previous plans.* 



conference and expressly recommended to its members that they should 
not attend. 

To this he answered: 

"Dear Foulke: 

"Now I must confess that I had forgotten about your being in the 
League to Enforce Peace, but if you will read what I have said a 
little more carefully, you will see that I carefully guarded myself, and 
attacked only the people who are in that League as a means to avoid 
doing their duty in the present. . . . Give me a chance to see you the 
first opportunity. It isn't necessary for me to say that I swear by you 
and your family in every way. 

"Faithfully yours, 

"Theodore Roosevelt." 

■* In one respect this was made necessary by the changed conditions. 
A number of new nations required the care and tutelage of others 
to protect them from predatory neighbours and to help them develop 
their institutions, so the question of mandatory powers was inevitably 
inwoven in the treaty. 

Naturally the main questions involved were : Who should compose 
the League? What should be the extent of its powers, and what the 
obligations of each of its members? The first nations to compose it 
were necessarily the allied and associated powers — those which had 
declared war a2:ainst Germany, some thirty-two in all, of which the 
five leading nations were Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and the 
United States. Thirteen neutral nations were also invited. The Cen- 
tral powers and certain others could be admitted afterwards by consent 
of two-thirds of the nations already in. 

The organs of the League were an Assembly, a Council and a Sec- 
retariat. In the Assembly each nation might have three delegates but 
only one vote. But the real power of the League was conferred upon 
the Council, composed of representatives of the five great powers and 



THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 187 

It was on the whole a very clumsy document, perhaps inevitably 
so, for it is hard to get many nations to agree unanimously to 
complicated provisions. It would have been better to have 
adopted some simpler plan like that originally proposed by the 
League to Enforce Peace. 

Moreover, the manner in which President Wilson acted in pre- 
paring this covenant naturally aroused resentment. The Consti- 
tution says that the President is to make treaties by and with 
the advice and consent of the Senate. That means something 

four other members to be elected by the Assembly. The Council was 
to meet each year, and the Assembly at stated periods to be afterwards 
fixed, or oftener, if so determined. 

The Secretariat was appointed by the Council, with the approval of 
the majority of the Assembly, and had no independent authority. 

Every determination of the Council (except in a few specified cases) 
must be by unanimous vote. This provision was certain to paralyse 
its efficiency, but unless unanimity were required there were nations 
which would not give up their sovereignty by joining a League where 
they might be outvoted. 

The paramount object of the League was to secure peace, first, by 
the reduction of armaments ; second, by the guarantee of the integrity 
and independence of the members, and, third, by providing for arbi- 
tration and conciliation. The Council was to formulate plans to reduce 
armaments, subject to revision every ten years. Since this must be 
done unanimously there was doubt how far the Council could go. 
There was nothing to compel any nation to adopt these plans, but if 
adopted no nation could increase its armaments so fixed without the 
unanimous concurrence of the Council. 

By Article Ten the members undertook to preserve as against exter- 
nal aggression the territorial integrity and political independence of 
the nations belonging to the League, and the Council was to advise 
upon the means by which this should be done. 

This article was obscure. Suppose no advice was given (and a single 
member might prevent it), what then was the force of this obligation? 
Could a nation refuse to perform it? Or was each still bound to 
resist such aggression by force of arms? The article, therefore, 
seemed to be either ineffective or else imposing heavy responsibilities. 

The third method of preserving peace was much like the one which 
had been proposed by our League to Enforce Peace. Each nation 
agreed to submit all disputes either to arbitration or to enquiry by the 
Council, and not to resort to war until three months after the award 
or report. Should any nation violate this provision, it was deemed 



i88 THE LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE 

more than mere consent. While it is true that many treaties 
have been first made by the Executive and then submitted, it has 
also been common during the negotiations for the President to 
confer informally with members of the Senate Committee on For- 
eign Affairs and with other leaders. There never was a time when 
mutual co-operation was so important as at the close of the World 
War, yet President Wilson apparently consulted with no Senators 
at all and gave none an opportunity to participate in what he did. 
All this was calculated to exasperate them. 

to have committed an act of war against all other members, and the 
others would then undertake to prohibit trade and intercourse with 
such offending nation, and the Council was to recommend what mili- 
tary and naval forces should be contributed by each to the armaments 
needed. This was the most valuable provision of the covenant, but it 
was much weaker than the proposals originally made by our League 
to Enforce Peace. In the covenant there was no division into jus- 
ticiable and non-justiciable cases, nor was any court created at all. 
The members merely agreed to submit to arbitration such disputes as 
they wished. All others went to the Council, which merely reported 
its recommendations. Either party could appeal to the Assembly. If 
the report of that body was unanimous, outside the parties to the 
dispute, the members agreed that they would not go to war with the 
party which complied with the recommendation. Such unanimity, how- 
ever, might be hard to secure, and if there were no unanimous report 
the nations reserved the right to take such action as they considered 
necessary. In these cases wars might still occur. 

The covenant might be amended, if the amendment were ratified 
unanimously by the nine members of the Council and also by a majority 
of the members represented in the Assembly. Amendments, therefore, 
would be all but impossible where there was any serious conflict of 
opinion. 

And yet the permanency of the League was not secured, for any 
nation might withdraw upon two years' notice, if it had fulfilled its 
obligations. Here again there was room for controversy. Who was 
to decide whether its obligations had been fulfilled? 

The reference to the Monroe Doctrine was vague and obscure. No 
one could say what was meant by it or who was to decide what that 
Doctrine was. 

The covenant did not set up any international court, although it 
provided that the Council was to do this thereafter. Nor were there 
any specific provisions as to the further development of international 
law. 



THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 189 

There were, moreover, many provisions in this complicated 
covenant which were unacceptable to the American people. Prom- 
inent among these was Article X, by which the United States, in 
joining the League, would undertake to preserve the territorial 
integrity of every other member against external aggression. 

The result was inevitable. The Senate refused to consent to 
the treaty, and our country still remains outside of the League 
of Nations. The fact tliat such a League has been formed, how- 
ever, among many other nations, and that, even without our 
co-operation, meetings of the Assembly and Council are regu- 
larly held and important action taken, indicates that a substantial 
advance has been made toward the elimination of war among the 
members of the League, and however inconclusive may appear all 
that has been done up to the present time, yet the germ of a 
World Federation may still be lurking in this organisation, which, 
like our own Articles of Confederation, may at last lead to "a 
more perfect Union" for the establishment and maintenance of 
the future peace of the world. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE WORLD WAR 

Children of liberty, whereso'er ye be, 
Forward to battle till the world is free! 
Come from sturdy England, from heroic France, 
Rise from stricken Belgium; Italy, advance! 
Look! We stand beside you, freedom's eldest born; 
We would share the laurels from the tyrant torn. 
Glorious the gospel comes across the sea ; 
On then to battle till the world is free ! 

— Children of Liberty. 

OUTBREAK OF THE STRUGGLE 

When the great war broke out I was in Germany, at the baths 
at Nauheim. I had gone there from Italy about the first of July, 
19 14, and was there during all the preliminaries of the world 
struggle. Everything came on with great deliberation. The mur- 
der of the Austrian archduke at Sarajevo was followed by a 
period of silence. The newspapers said the Austrian Government 
was "investigating," but there was no hint as to what this por- 
tended. Then came the ultimatum. There were no great head- 
lines as in American papers; the comment was scanty, but to 
those who read the text carefully it seemed clear that war was 
meant. The Germans themselves said that no Servian ministry 
could yield to such terms and live, but they added that it was 
not Germany but Austria which had made these hard demands, 
though of course Germany would finally have to support her 
ally. Then beyond all expectation, the Servian Government con- 
ceded everything demanded which did not involve the relinquish- 
ment by Servia of her own sovereignty within her own borders, 
and even as to this she offered to let the powers or the Hague 
decide the question. That should have been enough, but Aus- 
tria had determined upon war. Meanwhile what counsel had 
been given by Germany to her ally? Was she advised to soften 

100 



OUTBREAK OF THE STRUGGLE 191 

her conditions or was she assured of aid to wreak her will upon 
Servia? On all this there was silence. Austria next declared war 
upon Servia, and now the question was, What would Russia do? 
She had not stirred some years before when Bosnia and Herzego- 
vina were annexed. Would she move now? Few thought it; still 
the ties of blood were strong. Servia and Russia were both Slav 
States, and Russia had been the protector of the smaller king- 
dom. Could she abandon her ward? In the public press, in- 
spired by the government, the task of Germany was declared to 
be "to localise the war." That meant to let Servia be crushed 
by her powerful neighbour. Soon the Muscovite began to move. 
Then there was more diplomatic manoeuvring until it was an- 
nounced in the newspapers that the mobilisation of Russia's army 
had shattered the hope of peace. "War danger" was declared, and 
the order came to us that all letters must be left unsealed and 
written in German only; nor could any one talk over the tele- 
phone except in that language. In conversing with a friend I 
used a short English phrase and was instantly stopped by the 
operator, who was listening at the central office. War was now 
declared on Russia. Then the demand was made on France that 
she disclose her attitude, and when the answer came that it would 
be what her honour and her interest demanded, war was declared 
on her too because she had not promised neutrality. Notices 
were then posted on trees and fences and in other public places, 
of "Mobilisirung," giving the time and place for the assembling 
of those called. Everything else had been prepared long before. 

It was announced that regular trains would continue to run for 
two days, and that afterwards nothing but troops and arms would 
be transported. Travellers who wished to leave must depart at 
once. There was a wild scramble to get away. The cabs drove 
up in lines, loaded with baggage. This became so congested when 
it reached the Frankfort railroad station that literally miles of it, 
twenty feet high, were piled upon the long platforms. The cars 
were so packed that eighteen persons occupied compartments 
intended for four or six and had to stand jammed together, often 
all day and sometimes all night. 

I determined under these circumstances to wait quietly, finish 
my course of baths, and take my chances of getting out later, 



192 THE WORLD WAR 

though it was now evident that we were at the beginning of the 
greatest war in history. At the end of the two days mobilisation 
began and all civil traffic was stopped. There were indeed a few 
local trains, but on these it took three or four days to reach Ber- 
lin, only a few hours distant. The mails were practically sus- 
pended, and even telegrams from the American Ambassador, of 
which I received two or three each day, arrived several days after 
they were sent. I watched the mobilisation. It was a piece of 
clockwork, moving with chronometer accuracy. Not only had 
every reservist received his orders months before, but every horse, 
every automobile with its provision of gasoline, in short, every 
object which could be devoted to military uses had been cata- 
logued, together with the price to be paid for it. The money 
needed was on hand, taken from the war reserve. Everything 
was paid for and instantly seized by the military authorities. I 
saw horses standing side by side, in a line perhaps a mile in 
length, which were taken and paid for in this manner. Automo- 
biles were thus confiscated and the owners walked. 

The reserves came marching down the streets in citizens' clothes, 
singing their German melodies. Die Wackt ant Rhein, Wenn 
ich komm, wenn kit komm, wenn ich wiederum kom-m, etc. They 
marched to the fortress of Friedberg, a mile away. Every man's 
uniform and other belongings were ready in a box marked with 
his name, and in half an hour all emerged fully equipped, so com- 
plete was the preparation. 

Tracks were guarded at every hundred yards by armed men 
in citizens' clothes, and wearing white bands around their arms 
to show that they had been detailed for this purpose. At every 
bridge there was a squad of them, and at the stations a still 
larger number. Then the military trains started, trains of inter- 
minable length, freight cars, passenger cars — everything possible 
was utilised. These trains were packed with troops and passed 
every few minutes for a week. I stayed awake one night hearing 
them go by, it seemed to me unceasingly; more than one hundred 
and fifty passed in a single day. The troops were cheered as 
they went by singing their patriotic sonps, and on many of the 
cars were banners marked "Nach Paris." Notices were posted 
asking the women to come with food to the station at certain 



OUTBREAK OF THE STRUGGLE 193 

hours; and they all came with their baskets. The contents were 
spread along the platforms on improvised tables, and the soldiers 
ate and drank during a half-hour's wait. After the first week of 
mobilisation I was told that five millions of men had been placed 
under arms or sent to the front. I do not know how accurate 
were the figures, but they could not have been greatly exag- 
gerated since it was announced in the press that one million two 
hundred thousand volunteers had been enrolled, besides those 
already liable for military duty. It was astounding to see how 
in a few days a great country could be stripped of its men. The 
waiters and the porters at the hotel, the men in the shops, the 
cabmen and the farmers, all disappeared, until the streets began 
to look deserted. The bulk of those who remained were the 
women, the children, and the aged. Business was largely at a 
standstill. The important industries at Frankfort were discon- 
tinued, and most of the furnace fires were out. 

At the outset of the mobilisation it was announced that the 
country was infested with French and Russian spies, and the 
search for these began. ^lany poor devils were dragged along 
the streets, followed by crowds of hooting boys, and as a whole- 
some warning some were shot. We could not go from one town 
to another without being searched half a dozen times. Some 
of us had to go to Frankfort to secure passports. We had to 
get passes from the police before we could stir a step. It was 
hard enough to secure an automobile from among the few that 
remained, and although Frankfort was less than thirty miles away 
we were stopped eleven times by military guards, and our ma- 
chine was twice searched to see that no explosives were con- 
tained in it. 

Up to this time there was nothing in the newspapers or in 
any information which was allowed to reach us that Germany 
was in any way responsible for the outbreak of the war. She 
was simply supporting her ally, Austria, and resisting the threat 
caused by the mobilisation of the Russian army. 

But now we heard of the demand made on Belgium to violate 
her own neutrality and give free passage to the German troops. 
She must reply at once, and she obstinately refused! Here was 
a great empire at bay, with foes on either side, and her small 



194 THE WORLD WAR 

neighbour withheld this trifling favour! Belgium was, therefore, 
invaded, and when some shameless Belgians fired at the German 
troops from roofs and windows, their cities were destroyed, cathe- 
drals and universities razed, homes pillaged, and the people lined 
up against walls and shot. Did they not deserve it? True, the 
chancellor admitted that international law was broken, "but with 
the empire fighting for its life, it must hack its way through." 

It was this invasion of Belgium that first opened our eyes to 
the guilt of Germany. And now England, who had guaranteed 
Belgium's neutrality, joined with France and Russia and declared 
war. At this the German press and people howled with rage. 
It was all a vile pretence on England's part. Her motive was 
sheer envy. She wanted to suopress a business rival, and for 
this she was willing to break her ancient ties of kindred and 
friendship, all for "a scrap of paper." Then the English guests 
at Nauheim fell under the ban, and their apartments and their 
baggage and belongings were searched; all were forbidden under 
the heaviest penalties to go near the railroad or the station or 
even walk through the neighbouring forest. Everybody was for- 
bidden to give any information on any military event or transac- 
tion, so I refrained from writing down from day to day the things 
I saw, lest a search made among my papers might afterwards prove 
embarrassing. 

Ordinary communication with the outside world had practi- 
callv ceased. My wife was in England, one daughter, with her 
family, was in Calabria, in Italy, another was in Paris, and two 
of my grandsons were in Brittany. I could not get word to any 
of them, nor could they to me. This isolation continued for weeks. 
Letters of credit were not honoured, and I could get no more 
money. So I left my hotel and sought a cheaper lodging house. 
Finally it was announced that seventy-five dollars a week would 
be paid on checks of the American Express Company, and I 
went to the local bank early every Monday morning to accumu- 
late what I could for what might be an indefinite stay. I thus 
gathered quite a little sum in German money, which nobody would 
take after I had crossed the border. We were held up in this 
way for about a month and were finally sent out of the country 
through Holland on a special train made up for Americans. 



OUTBREAK OF THE STRUGGLE 195 

During the entire mobilisation there was no intoxication, no 
debauchery, no bravado. The temper of the people was re- 
markable. There was not a word of grumbling, and however they 
might regret the war they showed no impatience. They were 
absolutely a unit behind the Kaiser. I saw indeed tears in the 
eyes of a grey-haired cabman, who told me that his only horse 
was taken and that he was too old to follow any other business. 
Another poor fellow sighed as he told me of his little children 
who had no support now that he had to go. But there was very 
little even of such expressions as these. I heard of an old woman 
who was carrying a heavy burden but stumbled and fell under 
the weight; some one who aided her told her it was too much 
for her. She said it could not be helped, for her three sons had 
gone to war and there was no one else to do the work, and she 
added, "I pray they may come back, but if not I am glad to give 
them all to my country." On the part of every one there was 
perfect confidence that victory was sure. 

The slightest wish of the military authorities was cheerfully 
obeyed. A bulletin appeared asking all to refrain from drinking, 
and it was observed to the letter. The papers announced that 
news would be censored and that nothing would be published 
against the interest of the country; but that it could be counted 
on that everything printed would be strictly true. Everybody 
acquiesced without a murmur. Of course the half truths con- 
tained in such publications were misleading. 

From Holland I passed on to England. There the newspapers 
contained much more information, but it was perhaps as mis- 
leading as the German silence. The people did not seem to con- 
sider the war a very serious matter. Russia would soon over- 
whelm Germany on the east, and the one hundred and sixty 
thousand men which England had despatched to the Continent 
would settle the matter on the French frontier. I told some of 
my English friends that their contingent was trifling in compari- 
son with Germany's armament; that Germany had put millions 
in the field; that France would be invaded and much of its terri- 
tory overrun. They would not believe me. I insisted that the 
newspapers had been deluding them with false hopes and that 
they were living in a fool's paradise. They were raising recruits 



196 THE WORLD WAR 

by volunteering, a hundred thousand at a time. I observed that 
this was a ridiculously small number, that the recruits would 
need long training, and that a general conscription would soon be 
found necessary. ''Impossible!" they answered. "It would be 
repugnant to English liberty and to all our traditions to raise 
armies in this manner." I answered, "Then you cannot win the 
war." The event proved that conscription was inevitable. 

The things I had seen showed me plainly enough how hard it 
would be for the Allies to resist the aggressions of Germany, and 
I was impressed with the conviction that my own country might 
well be involved in this great war before it was concluded, and 
that it was our first duty to be prepared, that the price of safety 
was to arm our people and to train them for service. 

PREPAREDNESS 

We sailed for home near the end of September on the ill-fated 
Lusitania. Even then there was danger from submarines, and the 
lights on tlie vessel were extinguished. When I arrived in America 
I found there was even less understanding than in England of 
the gravity of the struggle. On reaching Indiana I spoke and 
wrote of what I had seen and tried to arouse public sentiment 
as to the need for preparation. Although there was strong sym- 
pathy for the Allies, the feeling of the country in favour of 
peace, encouraged by the President, who had urged the people 
to be neutral even in thought, was all but unanimous and pre- 
vented active preparation. The song, "I Didn't Raise My Boy 
To Be a Soldier," had great vogue. An "Anti-Enlistment League" 
was organised. Very few seemed to think it possible that we 
should become involved. There was indeed some agitation on 
the other side. The National Security League did much to arouse 
the people to their danger, I myself took part in the movement 
for preparedness, first by speeches in my own local community, 
and then by communications to the press in various parts of 
the country.* 

^ One of these communications, addressed to the Indianapolis Star, in 
January, 19x5, was as follows: 
"The advocates of peace take the occasion of the present war to 



PREPAREDNESS 197 

John W. Kern of Indiana, the Democratic leader of the Senate, 
published an interview deprecating all preparation. We were 
quite safe, he said, and there wasn't any use in spending money. 
I wrote to him remonstrating vigorously, but quite ineffectually, 
and later he became amusing in his suggestions. It occurred to 
him, he said, that we could save by using the uniformed bodies 
of various fraternal orders, the Knights of Pythias, the Ancient 
Order of Hibernians, the Knights of Columbus, and other organi- 
sations. They looked good to him on parade, and he wanted them 
trained for national defence. Of which Life remarked: 

"Some informed person should take Senator Kern by the button and 
explain to him how very much difference there is between modern war 
and a lawn party." 

The Progressives were just as badly steeped in the prevailing 
indifference as the members of either of the old parties. Early 
in December, 19 14, a conference had been held in Chicago at 
the call of the executive committee. There were representatives 

reinforce their doctrines in favour of disarmament and non-resistance. 
It was the immense armaments of Europe, they say, and the war 
spirit which these armaments created, that led to the present cataclysm. 
Therefore, military preparation is all a mistake and we ought to be 
as helpless as possible and thus give a shining illustration of our peace 
principles to all the world. 

"Could any logic be more fatuous? If indeed all nations would dis- 
arm we should then be as safe as any. But they will not disarm. If 
either Germany or the Allies win, is it conceivable that the victor 
will throw away the means by which alone he has preserved his very 
existence? . . . 

"We know from Bernhardi's book and from many other German 
sources what is the goal of German ambition. It is world dominion ; 
and after her domination of Europe is complete, what better field on 
her path to universal power than the United States, where so many 
of Germany's sons already live, who have been hitherto largely sym- 
pathetic with her purposes? 

"But could the Germans subdue a country like America? If they 
could control the seas, then our navy, our merchant marine and our 
great seaboard cities would be at once at their mercy, and with their 
magnificent equipment in artillery and other implements of destruction, 
a few hundred thousand of their splendidly trained men could subdue 



1 98 THE WORLD WAR 

from thirty-four of the States. Mr. Murdock of Kansas urged 
support of the President in his efforts to maintain neutrality and 
peace. There was also much talk of the necessity of nominating 
Roosevelt, in 191 6, and of taking the tariff out of politics by 
means of a scientific commission, but not one word was said 
about the need of national defence. I was ill and left before 
the end of the session, much disappointed. 

On December 9, 19 14, after my return home, I thus wrote to 
Mr. George W. Perkins, chairman of the committee: 

"If we confine our attention to the tariff in the present crisis, it seems 
to me we should be following a wholly wrong scent. The question at 
this moment is the question of our national defence. If we are indif- 
ferent to that, in what may become the critical period in our history, the 
country may very well become indifferent to us." 

I wrote the same thing to Theodore Roosevelt, who agreed and 
answered that Wilson, Bryan, and Daniels represented the nadir 

any part of America they chose and levy such tribute for the con- 
tinuance of the war as to make our ultimate -subjugation only a matter 
of time. When Germany levies its scores of millions upon impoverished 
Belgium, what scores of billions would be necessary for the redemption 
of New York, Boston and Philadelphia? Such an outlay might be 
more expensive than the cost of the armament so greatly deprecated 
by our pacifist friends. The little army we have to-day and all we 
could then raise would be crushed in a single campaign. We have 
neither sufficient equipment, guns nor ammunition, with which to defend 
ourselves. It would take years to manufacture the cannon and other 
appliances necessary for our defence, and now we are wasting the 
golden moments when the belligerents are busy with other things, the 
moments which are absolutely indispensable to our future security. 
... It is all folly to talk about the tariff or mere economic questions 
when the very life of our republic may be at stake. Our business is 
to prepare for emergencies at once. 

"It is said that the people of Tarentum, when the foe was at its 
gates, were engaged in disputes as to the choral measures in one of 
the plays exhibited in the great theatre of the city. Speedy destruction 
followed. Let us not be like the people of Tarentum. Let us not wait 
until the foe is at our gates." 

Although this letter received favourable editorial comment, it ap- 
parently made little impression. 



PREPAREDNESS 199 

of misconduct in reference to national defence. Mr. Perkins 
answered rather ambiguously that he doubted if the people had 
yet realised the enormous changes which the European war was 
bound to bring forward. We were as a party to keep our powder 
dry, our lines well formed, and be ready to give the country the 
best possible service. I answered that to speak of keeping our 
powder dry and our lines well formed, when we had not a word 
to say on this important subject, was to act like the Bell and 
Everett Party in i860 in ignoring the slavery question, a policy 
followed by its early dissolution; that for myself I expected to 
co-operate with that party that gave the best assurance for pro- 
viding for the national defence. It was my belief that the organi- 
sation which took no thought of this would soon pass out of sight 
and out of memory. I sent a copy of this letter to Mr. Roose- 
velt, who answered that he thought exactly the same thing; that 
adequate preparation was an issue more important than any other 
question and that Progressives who backed Wilson in his so- 
called neutrality policy were doing a very serious damage to the 
party. Mr. Roosevelt was at this time engaged in an active 
propaganda in behalf of preparedness. His agitation was the 
first powerful agency in awakening the country. 

On January 29, 191 5, 1 spoke at a dinner of Progressive leaders 
in Indianapolis. President Wilson had recently visited that city 
and had made a partisan speech at Tomlinson Hall, declaring that 
the Republican Party had not had a new idea for thirty years. 
He had observed that he liked to "breathe the air of Jackson 
Day," apparently unmindful of the fact that Jackson at New 
Orleans had stood for the defence of the country, while Mr. Wil- 
son had said nothing and had done nothing toward providing for 
our national security. I criticised this inconsistency and added: 

"There is to-day a wave of midwinter madness sweeping over large 
numbers of our citizens who insist that it is our duty to remain dis- 
armed and by our helplessness to give a shining illustration of our 
peace principles to all mankind. 

"Mr. Carnegie tells us that those who demand security against foreign 
aggression are as bad as the man who wanted a lightning rod put up 
over his back when he walked through the streets, and that the farmers 
of our country, coming together without artillery or other arms than 



200 THE WORLD WAR 

their shotguns, could overcome the disciplined troops that any power 
in the world might send against us. 

"I expect," I added, "to vote for that party and that candidate that 
gives me the strongest assurance that our country shall be defended. 
If the Republican Party is the only one which can supply it, I intend 
to hold my nose and vote for any unregenerate rascal it may nominate 
if he is the only man who gives me such assurance." 

Those who were there responded enthusiastically, yet the great 
body of our people were still asleep. It was uphill work, this 
demand for a suitable armament. 

Roosevelt's efforts throughout the country were indeed begin- 
ning to produce an impression, but so far as the Progressive or- 
ganisation was concerned little was done. 

On February 22, Washington's birthday, I was asked to deliver 
an address at Anderson, Indiana, and after quoting his advice 
to Congress urging military preparation, I declared that it was 
an empty service to honour and praise the Father of our Country 
and yet to repudiate his counsels. Would he not look down in 
solemn reprobation upon the unworthy descendants of the vet- 
erans of Bunker Hill and Valley Forge and Yorktown who had 
taken so little thought to preserve the precious inheritance which 
he and his companions had bequeathed? 

I addressed several other meetings to stir up public opinion 
in favour of preparedness, and delivered at the State House in 
Indianapolis the Centennial Ode on the hundredth anniversary of 
Indiana's admission to the Union. In this too I urged the impor- 
tance of preparing for the struggle which confronted us. 

Gradually, however, the knowledge of our danger began to 
permeate the consciousness of the people. Even the President 
seemed to be becoming aware of it, and in New York, on Janu- 
ary 27, 1916, he began a series of speeches in favour of prepared- 
ness, saying, "I would be ashamed if I had not learned something 
in fourteen months," and suggesting the possibility that the United 
States might be drawn into the war. In Cleveland he declared 
the country must prepare as promptly as possible, because he 
could not tell what another day would bring forth, and in 
St. Louis, "I assure you there is not a day to be lost." 

This was the year of the Presidential election, and the three 



THE CONSCRIPTION BOARD 201 

parties, including the Progressives, now all advocated preparation. 
Yet the re-election of Mr. Wilson was very largely due to the 
feeling that he had "kept us out of war," and would still continue 
to do so. This, however, was soon found to be impossible, and 
shortly after his inauguration war was declared. 



THE CONSCRIPTION BOARD 

When America entered the struggle I did what little I could 
to help, i had offered my services to Mr. Roosevelt in case he 
could use me in connection with his proposed expedition to France. 
But as he did not have an opportunity to go, nothing came of it. 
Naturally a man nearly seventy years of age cannot enter the 
military service, so I had to content myself with such work asi 
I could do at home. I took part in the "drives" for Liberty 
loans. Red Cross and the like, and I was appointed Government 
agent for our local conscription board. At the request of this 
board I was present at its daily sessions and acted as its gen- 
eral adviser, scrutinising the lists and examining the witnesses 
and documents. I thus had ample opportunity to see the prac- 
tical workings of the conscription law. 

Considering the immense number of men who had to be drafted 
by means of an organisation suddenly created and composed of 
men who had no knowledge of military affairs, the system devel- 
oped by Provost Marshal General Crowder was admirable. There 
were many mistakes, especially in the beginning, but the work 
as a whole was done far better than we had a right to 
expect. 

To prevent fraudulent claims for exemption I caused the lists 
to be published in the daily papers as they came up for con- 
sideration, together with a notice calling upon all citizens to 
give information of anything showing that an exemption made 
by the local board was improper. I received some letters in 
answer to this publication, but in proportion to the entire number 
the cases alleged to be fraudulent were very few. I also went 
over the lists with the chief of police and with a number of 
persons who had a wide acquaintance throughout the county, and 
I examined the tax duplicates to see whether the persons who 



202 THE WORLD WAR 

were said to be dependent had other adequate means of support. 

Richmond was originally a Quaker community, and there were 
still many Friends living there and in the adjoining country. 
Naturally one would expect that there would be large numbers 
of persons who would claim exemption on the ground that they 
belonged to a society whose tenets forbade taking part in war. 
The number of these cases, however, was extremely small, not 
more than a score or two in all, and when these men were 
assigned to non-combatant duty there was little difficulty. In- 
deed, many Friends volunteered for general military service, and 
there was an active propaganda in the Society for doing recon- 
struction work in France. Despite the occasional hardships of 
conscientious objectors elsewhere, the policy of the Government 
was in the main wise and salutary. The fact that criticisms 
came from both sides, those on the one hand claiming that the 
rules were too strict, and those on the other insisting that they 
were not strict enough, was itself pretty good evidence that the 
Government had adopted the golden mean. There were very few 
cases in my experience where conscientious objections were used 
as a mere pretence for avoiding the draft. 

The fraudulent claims for exemption were upon other grounds. 
One man who wanted to get off because his wife was dependent, 
was sued by her for divorce on account of inhuman treatment. 
Another man got from a neighbour a child whom he adopted and 
then claimed exemption on this ground. But even such cases 
were infrequent and usually unsuccessful. The general attitude 
of the registrants was creditable. There were not many who 
were eager to go, but the feeling was, as some of them expressed 
it, "When my turn comes and my country needs my services, I'm 
ready and I'll do my duty." Perhaps that is a better augury of 
enduring courage than mere enthusiasm at the start. Certainly 
these men did credit to their country at the front. 

At a later period a form of questionnaire was adopted, by which 
the men were not actually discharged, but were placed in different 
classes, to be called in the order in which they could best afford 
to go, without inflicting unnecessary hardships upon dependents 
or upon the industries of the country. The questions were ad- 
mirably devised, and they elicited the most necessary information 



THE CONSCRIPTION BOARD 203 

in an automatic manner, leaving little to the discretion of the 
boards. 

The bulk of the work had been finished, when in the latter 
part of April, 1918, I asked to be relieved from further service 
on account of illness. 



CHAPTER XIII 

JOURNALISM AND LITERATURE 

"Why dost thou come so late ?" enquires the muse ; 

"More bUthe the song when he who sings is young." 
But I protest, " 'Twere folly thus to choose ; 

Is not the ripe fruit sweetest to the tongue?" 

— The Muse and I. 

JOURNALISM 

I have dabbled a little in journalism. In college I was one 
of the editors of the Cap and Gown. After moving to Richmond 
in 1876 I bought an interest in the Palladium, then the principal 
daily in the district, and used to write a certain share of the 
editorials, but differences arose between my partner and myself 
in regard to the political policy of the paper, and my interest was 
finally sold to him. 

A new daily which arose during this period, the Evening Item, 
afterwards became for a time the leading paper. In 1901 I 
bought a half interest in the Item. The other owner, Mr. J. Ben- 
net Gordon, a vigorous writer, continued for some years in charge 
of the editorial management, though I sometimes contributed. 
Afterwards I became the sole owner of the paper and edited it 
myself. The Item advocated Progressive principles and sup- 
ported the policies of Theodore Roosevelt. 

LITERARY INTERESTS 

In earlier years I had been too busy with other things to give 
much time to general literature. But I was fond of this kind 
of work, and after withdrawing from the bar there was more 
leisure available. The next place but one to our home was 
"Reeveston," the home of Mrs. Foulke's parents and of her 
brother, Arthur M. Reeves. He was a man of scholarly attain- 

204 



LIFE OF GOVERNOR MORTON 205 

ments who had made a special study of Norse literature and had 
collected a valuable Icelandic library of several thousand titles. 
He spent a long time in Copenhagen, examining, translating, 
annotating and phototyping the ancient Norse manuscripts in the 
Arna-Magnaean Library which narrated the Icelandic discovery 
of America. The result of his work afterwards appeared in a 
quarto volume published by the Oxford Press entitled "Wine- 
land the Good." ^ 

My intimacy with my brother-in-law was a close one. We had 
travelled much together in Europe, and his broad scholarship, his 
literary tastes and his unerring sense of the beautiful had made 
him a delightful companion. I had not, up to the time of his 
death (in 1891) published any literary work, except a monograph 
on Russia. But this association and our reading and literary dis- 
cussions stimulated greatly my fondness for literature, and I began 
to write books on a variety of subjects — history, biography, criti- 
cism, fiction and poetry — scattering, I fear, a rather limited 
amount of talent over too wide a field. Most of these books owe 
their existence to accident rather than to any systematic design. 

The first of these, "Slav and Saxon," has been already men- 
tioned. 

LIFE OF GOVERNOR MORTON 

When in the Legislature I became the friend of Oliver T. 
Morton, the youngest son of Oliver P. Morton, war governor of 
Indiana. He spoke of his regret that there had been no adequate 
biography of his father and asked me to undertake the work. 
As I looked into the subject it began to interest me greatly, and 
I decided to do so. Governor Morton, who was born and 
reared in Wayne County and practised law at Centreville, the 

1 On his death his library passed to my eldest daughter who pro- 
posed to follow up her uncle's researches and spent a year in private 
study at home under an Icelandic instructor. She afterwards visited 
Iceland, and then attended lectures at the Royal University of Copen- 
hagen, studying the Norse language. Other matters intervened, how- 
ever, to prevent the prosecution of these studies, and the library, after 
being stored for years, has now been sent by her as a gift to the Uni- 
versity of Louvain. 



2o6 JOURNALISM AND LITERATURE 

county seat, had been very well known in the community in 
which I lived and it would be easy, I thought, to secure the mate- 
rials for his life. The task, however, proved to be a long and 
arduous one. Very little of his correspondence had been pre- 
served, and the materials for the biography had to be collected 
largely from newspapers. Morton had been a strong partisan, was 
ardently supported by the Republican press and viciously attacked 
in the Democratic press, but by comparing all that appeared on 
both sides it was not hard to give a reasonably impartial estimate 
of his career and character. I was engaged in this work inter- 
mittently for more than ten years.^ 

Two episodes were published as magazine articles before the 
volumes themselves appeared, namely, "The History of the 



2 I had the benefit of much valuable criticism from those who were 
intimately associated with Morton. The following letter from W. P. 
Fishback one of the leading lawyers of Indianapolis, who had been 
closely connected with him when he was governor, is an illustration. 

Indianapolis, Ind., Jan. i8th 1896. 
Dear Mr. Foulke: 

The Bowen-Merrill Co. have given me the first nineteen chapters of 
your life of Morton, and I have read them with great interest. It is 
requested that I make "suggestions" in the way of cutting down the 
bulk of the narrative. . . . There is great difficulty to me in this. 
The theme is a great one and Morton's stature as a man is greatly 
increased by the way you present him. He is thoroughly living in 
your pages. As Emerson said of Montaigne's writing, the words seem 
alive and the feeling is that they would bleed if you cut into them. 
Now will the interest I feel be shared by the public who ought to read 
this book? It covers a momentous period in our history, and the 
danger and temptation in writing about Morton is to write the history 
of his time. A biography will not bear that weight, even one so 
interesting as this — such is my fear. I have accordingly suggested 
that men like Judge Perkins, John Elder and John Harkness be left 
out except when it is necessary to name them. I remember all the 
incidents mentioned — the oath of allegiance, etc. 

Another thing: I think you should select Morton's great speeches, 
such as that at Rushville, and give them in full and condense others. 
You cannot give them all in a biography. So of his letters and other 
documents, which might be abridged. 

I notice by the erasures that some one, yourself probably, has gone 



LIFE OF GOVERNOR MORTON 207 

Knights of the Golden Circle," in the Atlantic Mcnithly, and an 
account of a secret mission to Louis Napoleon, which was 
entrusted to Morton by President Johnson when Morton went 
to Europe. The mission was to inform the Emperor that the 
French troops must be withdrawn from IVIexico, a thing which 
the President did not wish to communicate through diplomatic 
channels lest the record might cause the French Government 
unnecessary embarrassment. This account was published in the 
Century.^ 

After the book was published I kept receiving complaints from 
the relatives of different persons mentioned in it — that I had 
failed to do justice to the memorable deeds and high purposes 
of their respective kinsmen, I suppose this is inevitable when a 
writer criticises frankly the men and things that he thinks deserve 
it. In one instance I was satisfied I had done an injustice and 
directed that a page should be removed and another substituted. 
But in all other cases I refused to make any change. 



over the manuscript and used the erasing pencil quite freely, and 
it is difficult to find much that can be spared. For myself, I would 
keep it all, but you have to think of the large public. "Morton's 
Life" ought to be in every home in Indiana. He is the single great 
historic figure of our State. 

Sincerely yours, 

W. P. FiSHBACK. 

3 It was doubted at the time by many and was denied by John 
Bigelow, our minister to Paris, who, however, knew nothing about 
the facts. The accuracy of the account appears from the following 
letter from the Hon. R. R. Hitt, who was Morton's private secretary 
when he was senator, and who was afterwards in Congress and promi- 
nent on the Committee on Foreign Affairs. The letter refers to a 
visit made by Hitt during Morton's last illness at Indianapolis. 

May 18, 1897, Washington, D. C. 
William Dudley Foulke, Esq., 

Richmond, Indiana. 
Dear Sir: 

Your article handles the matter accurately. ... I stayed with 
Morton from early in the evening, when the car arrived bringing him 
from Richmond, until into the morning hours — two or three o'clock — • 



2o8 JOURNALISM AND LITERATURE 

"MAYA" 

A few years later I was at work upon another book whose 
origin was quite casual. I had been travelling in Yucatan and 
had become interested in the ancient Maya civilisation, whose 
remains were scattered over that peninsula in the ruins of cities, 
palaces and temples. I never visited a country which affected 
me more profoundly, and the ruins were all the more interesting 
because so little was known of the people of whose civilisation 
they are almost the only records. 

Some time after my return it occurred to me that my impres- 
sions of Yucatan might be better conveyed in a romance than 
by a mere descriptive article and that Prescott's account of cer- 
tain castaways, captured by the Mayas about the time of the 
discovery of the country, some of whom were offered to the 
gods in sacrifice, might be used as the starting-point for a story 
of adventure, which should embrace many of the scenes of the 



when I had to take the train on my way to Paris. I never saw him 
again. 

My recollection goes a little further than your article. As to John- 
son's conversation with Morton being his exclusive instructions — ■ 
Morton had every reason to believe Mr. Seward knew nothing of the 
President's instructions to him — the impression I had from Morton 
was that Johnson did not feel satisfied with the methods of Seward. 
I am perfectly clear in my recollection that the whole matter was by 
direction of the President, carried on without any knowledge on the 
part of Mr. Bigelow. 

The interview with the Emperor was, as I understand, soon after 
meeting with Rothschild, who arranged the conference. In it Mr. 
Morton, for the President, told the Emperor plainly the state of national 
feeling in the United States against the French occupation of Mexico, 
and that the inevitable, final result must be evacuation ; that prolonging 
the occupation was in every way unadvisable and would lead to deplora- 
ble conflict. . . . 

The Emperor said he appreciated all this; that he had secured 
already the avowed objects of the expedition for his subjects and 
would soon take steps which would avoid such complications with us 
as those the President deplored. 

Very truly yours, 

R. R. HiTT. 



"HISTORY OF THE LANGOBARDS" 209 

ancient Maya civilisation. The plot developed as I wrote. I 
am not conscious that any part of it was taken from other sources. 
The legends are genuine and the descriptions of the country are 
accurate, but outside of these the story is entirely imaginary. 

"protean papers" 

"Protean Papers" was "simply a piece of literary fooling" (as 
one of the reviewers said to me) on such disconnected subjects as 
"Spellbinders," "Mountaineering in Mexico," "My Dog," etc., 
with passing observations on "The Economical Acquisition of 
Royal Ancestry," "The Frailties of Literary Criticism" and "The 
Disadvantages of a College Education." It never had a large 
circulation. 

"history of the LANGOBARDS" 

In 1904, while living in Venice for some months, I fell so 
deeply under the spell of that wonderful city that I wanted to 
write its history, and I went each day either to the library of 
St. Mark's or to the Church of the Frari to examine some early 
manuscripts and documents. I also collected a large number 
of works on the history of Venice from among the old book-shops 
of the place and began to arrange the materials for my first chap- 
ters. These related to the settlements on the islands of the lagoon 
and to the establishment of popular institutions during the dim 
and uncertain period before the creation of the dukedom and the 
oligarchy. But as the subject gradually unfolded, and the enor- 
mous research required became apparent, it was evident that the 
rest of my life would have to be given to that task alone if it 
were to be done adequately, and that the work even then would 
probably be left incomplete. I therefore gave up so ambitious 
a project in favour of something more modest. I had come across 
an attractive book written in Latin by Paul the Deacon, a Bene- 
dictine monk, during the reign of Charlemagne, "The History of 
the Langobards." In his garrulous story-telling he seemed to me 
a sort of mediaeval Herodotus. His history had never been done 
into English, and it seemed worth while to translate it with ex- 
planatory notes and a biography of the author. The book was 



210 JOURNALISM AND LITERATURE 

published in 191 6 in a historical series issued by the University 
of Pennsylvania. Quite apart from its value as a source of 
mediaeval history, Paul's quaint and simple narrative has a charm 
of its own and is fitted for the entertainment of the general reader 
as well as of the student. 

''DOROTHY day" 

A variety of incidents which occurred in my boyhood, illus- 
trative of the customs and modes of thought of the Society of 
Friends, seemed worth preserving, and I did this in a novel, cov- 
ering a period just before and including the Civil War, when the 
peace principles of the Society came into conflict with the patriotic 
feelings aroused by that struggle. Some of the stirring scenes of 
this war were brought into the chapters of the story. In this 
way was written "The Quaker Boy, a Tale of the Outgoing Gen- 
eration as Chronicled in the Memoirs of Robert Barclay Dilling- 
ham." This was first published anonymously and then appeared 
in a second edition in 191 1, under the title of "Dorothy Day." 

"masterpieces of the masters of fiction" 

I once determined, instead of reading any new work of fiction, 
to review the masterpieces I had most enjoyed and see what 
changes time had made in my impressions of them. Choosing 
some forty of the most celebrated authors, from Rabelais and 
Cervantes down to Tolstoi and Stevenson, and omitting only those 
who were still living, I selected for criticism one story by each, 
which should represent his best work. These were read one 
after another in the shortest time possible so as to get a compre- 
hensive notion of the whole. Thus the general perspective and 
the comparative merits and faults of each work might appear more 
clearly than in any other way. The observations made upon 
this second reading were thrown together in a book entitled, "The 
Masterpieces of the Masters of Fiction," published in 191 2. 

"fighting the SPOn.SMEN" 

There was one book, however, whose origin was not accidental 
but represented half a lifetime of effort, not in the writing, but in 



POETRY 211 

doing and observing the things described. This was "Fighting 
the Spoilsmen." It consisted mainly of reminiscences of the Civil 
Service Reform movement after the passage of the Pendleton Act 
of 1883. The history of this reform in England had been given 
in Dorman B. Eaton's standard work on the Civil Service in Great 
Britain; the pioneer efforts in America were recorded in the report 
of Thomas Allen Jenckes and in the speeches and writings of 
George William Curtis and Carl Schurz. I continued the story 
down to the entrance of America into the World War. I had 
been in the thick of the fight with Curtis, Schurz and Eaton and 
had been in charge of many investigations conducted by the 
National Civil Service Reform League. I was also a co-worker 
in this movement with Theodore Roosevelt, who afterwards ap- 
pointed me to a place on the Civil Service Commission. In this 
volume I detailed the progress of the reform and the incidents 
of our struggles with the spoilsmongers so far as these had come 
under my personal observation. 

POETRY 

Except for a few rhymes in college, it was not until I was 
sixty that I gave any attention to the writing of verse. In 1908, 
while taking a course of baths at Nauheim, Germany, and hav- 
ing plenty of leisure, I employed it turning into verse my romance 
of "Maya," written about eight years before. I first intended to 
write a libretto, but the work expanded quite beyond the limits 
proper for such a production and developed into ' 'Maya, a Lyrical 
Drama," which was published in 191 1. It is not, however, 
adapted to ordinary dramatic representation. 

In 1913 I was abroad again and was quite ill. I had purchased 
a volume of Petrarch's poems in Italian, and during the following 
months at Rome, Lugano, Nauheim and Grindelwald, in the long 
periods when I was confined to my room and often to my bed, 
I amused myself by reading and re-reading these poems and turn- 
ing the sonnets into English sonnets, and the odes, sestines and 
madrigals into corresponding English rhymes. The game was an 
attractive one and whiled away many tedious hours. It is astonish- 
ing to find with what facility such work can be done when you get 



212 JOURNALISM AND LITERATURE 

into the swing of it, and I found myself able to transfer at least a 
part of the wonderful beauty of these poems into the English 
tongue. This book was published by the Oxford University Press 
in the following year, and the reviews were so favourable that I 
was tempted to go further and write some short poems of my 
own. Many of these appeared in the Indianapolis Star and after- 
wards in "Lyrics of War and Peace," published in 191 6 in Eng- 
land by the Oxford Press and in America by the Bobbs-Merrill 
Company of Indianapolis. 

Four years later and after the conclusion of the war I issued 
another volume of much the same general character, entitled 
"To-day and Yesterday." This was published in 1920, also by 
the Oxford University Press. In these verses there will be found 
little to appeal to the admirers of the "new poetry" as it is 
called. The idea that there must be developed something radi- 
cally different in the poetry of the future from that of the past 
seems to me entirely fanciful. Who was it said of a certain 
work that it contained some new things and some good things, 
but the things that were new were not good and the things that 
were good were not new? Something like this could well be said 
of much of this "Poetry of the Future." 

Indeed, Indiana writers in general have not followed the ex- 
cesses which became among certain circles elsewhere the fashion 
of the twentieth century. There was a homespun quality in story 
and in poem, a rustic but sharp thrust in cartoon and jest, which 
made pose unwelcome and sincerity popular. "New Art," whether 
it took the form of wild orchestration, futurist pictures, or imagist 
poetry, made little headway, and while new fashions are sure 
to have some followers everywhere, Indiana taste has, up to the 
present time, instinctively preferred the homely appeal of Riley's 
poetry to the extravagances of the futurists. Riley himself had 
no patience with the pretensions of the new school. 



CHAPTER XIV 

PERSONALIA 

Two kinds of sorrows vex our lives with care, 

Things that we can, and things we can not mend ; 
If we can change them, why should we despair? 

And if not, why our days in torment spend? 
For beauty is around us everywhere. 

In the blue sky or cloud, at noon or night. 
And glory fills the heavens, and earth is fair 

Whether its mantle be of green or white. 
Whence cometh joy? On many a pampered son 

Life has bestowed her richest gifts in vain. 
While from some crippled, poor, neglected one 

Come songs of cheer and smiles that banish pain. 
The wellspring is within, to curse or bless; 
In our own hearts is grief or happiness. 

— Happiness. 
See infra, p. 223. 

WHIMS AND FANCIES 

On one occasion, at a summer hotel (I think it was at the 
Delaware Water Gap), there was a grey-haired German gentle- 
man who looked like a professor and who carried with him, 
wherever he went, a small net, such as children use for catching 
butterflies. And this indeed it was, and he carried it for just 
that purpose, for wherever he might happen to be, whether stroll- 
ing among the hills or sitting upon the veranda of the hotel, 
as soon as he spied one of these gay summer beauties he would 
chase it with boyish eagerness. Once he sprawled upon the floor 
of our general assembly room in his mad pursuit of a particu- 
larly valuable variety called "The Queen of the Night." I asked 
if he were a naturalist, and if these efforts were in behalf of 
science. "Nein," he answered (for he had come to America to 
chase butterflies without the knowledge of a word of English). 
"Nein, es ist nur Passion." 

The other guests were sympathetic, and we all rallied to his 
support in his wild scrambles after the bright- winged flutterers. 

213 



214 PERSONALIA 

This butterfly madness is only an illustration of a weakness 
common to us all. Who is there that has not his "Passion"? We 
may be shamefaced about it and keep it from the knowledge of 
men, but some such folly lies hidden in the recesses of every 
heart. 

Now my "Passion" was for mountains. I have seldom gone 
to any new place for a summer's outing without wondering what 
mountains there might be in the neighbourhood, how high they 
were and whether they were worth a climb. In comparing the 
various ranges and peaks, mere height had an indefinable charm for 
me. Thus the Irish and Scotch mountains, with the beautiful land- 
scapes around them, set as delicately as pictures in enamel, were 
not as attractive as the Rockies or the Alps, while the seventeen 
thousand feet of Popocatepetl was long the Mecca of my dreams, 
and when that had been scaled, there came a longing for Chim- 
borazo or Cotopaxi or the Golden Throne. I studied the tables 
of comparative elevations in the geographies with an interest like 
that which a politician feels in figuring out electoral majorities, 
and when travelling, no matter where, if there were a mountain 
near at hand, I would start from the inn the very first moment 
possible for a scramble to its summit. Talk not of yachting or 
motoring, nor of incredible catches of great fish; show me no 
trophies of big game; speak not of golf, that uimecessary stimu- 
lant to profanity! What are such things to the lover of the 
mountain? 

True, there was some sport in canoeing, winding in and out 
through streams and inlets and enjoying the silent strokes of the 
paddle and the smooth gliding of the light craft over the clear 
still water; and there was another delightful exercise — a long- 
distance swim of a mile or more along the coast, when you rise 
and fall with the big swells, conscious that you can place your 
body in any position and glide quietly through the cool water. 
Hunting was not such good fun, but the reason was not hard to 
find. I used to go on occasional expeditions to English Lake in 
northern Indiana, and one day, after my pusher had laid out for 
me a fine decoy and had made an elaborate blind of bushes where 
I was securely hidden, flocks of wild ducks swept across in front 
of me, and during the day I brought down eight or ten of them. 



WHIMS AND FANCIES 215 

This I thought was doing pretty well, though I had missed many 
more than I had shot. But as the pusher rowed me back to the 
clubhouse he said in discouraged tones, "I kin take a man where 
ducks is, but I kain't make him hit them ducks." I have done 
little hunting since. 

I was not much better with the rod than with the gun. My 
companions once declared that after I had got a salmon on the 
hook I proceeded to march down the stream with the rod over 
my shoulder and the fish tugging behind until he broke the line. 

A stroll through the woods or along the beach with some con- 
genial soul was quite as much sport as hunting or fishing. The 
family used to spend the summer at Watch Hill, where there was 
always good company. The most delightful of all companions 
was David A. Wells, the political economist. He and I used to 
walk regularly a mile or two along the shore to a wreck that had 
been tossed up from the sea, and we devoted ourselves assiduously 
to an attempt to burn it. One day we would kindle a fire which 
would destroy some small part of it and then go out. Next day 
we would kindle another and so all through the summer, but 
when we left in the fall it was still mostly unconsumed. But the 
problems of government we discussed on our way to and from 
the wreck and the wealth of illustration exhibited by this eminent 
man in the development of his economic theories — these things 
are a joy in the remembrance. 

It was at Watch Hill that I learned to ride a bicycle. Mr. 
William P. Anderson had a cottage there and was taking lessons 
from a certain cadaverous looking "professor" at Stonington, and 
he asked me to join him. The scene of our instruction was a 
little triangular plot of land bounded by three roads, in front 
of the railway station. The "professor" would run along with us, 
hold us on for a few moments and then leave us to our fate, 
and the accuracy with which we tumbled into the ditch at the 
side of the road was past belief. When his instruction began 
there was generally nobody near, but as we continued, the pas- 
sengers to and from the different trains stopped to see the fun, 
and the temptation to stay was irresistible. Some of them would 
miss their trains rather than miss such sport, and before the 
"lesson" ended there was a formidable crowd gathered around us 



2i6 PERSONALIA 

which broke every now and then into uproarious laughter at our 
discomfiture. Never were two such awkward men before, but 
we kept at it and when the "course" was completed we had 
learned to ride. 

Now with advancing years I have had to give up many of the 
forms of exercise in which I once delighted. I can no longer climb 
a very high mountain, nor swim any great distance. Horseback 
riding, in which I was at one time so expert that I could ride 
standing on the horse's back, now has to be of the tamest variety 
with a perfectly tractable and well-gaited animal; no racing, nor 
jumping, nor adventure of any sort. Tennis had to be eschewed 
altogether, and golf was abandoned some time ago. As Joseph 
Choate said, "When we grow old we have to jettison one thing 
after another in our cargo in order to save what remains." 

The main thing is to abandon these things without regret. 
There is still a great deal left. The woods are as green, the 
streams as sparkling and the sunsets as bright as ever, and the 
old man can enjoy these even better in later years than in the 
flush of youth or prime of manhood when he has so much else to 
claim his attention. The venerable Mark Hopkins of Williams 
College once said to me that the happiest time of his life was 
his old age, and in the absence of positive distress from sickness 
or other cause it ought to be so with all. The twilight is more 
tranquil and filled with greater charm than the day. 

Some of the supposed advantages of mature years, however, 
seem to me rather the reverse. Old age, it is said, enjoys the 
benefits of experience. These are indeed often great, yet in one 
thing experience is not a benefit but a drawback. The young 
man imagines that he is completely the master of his own will, that 
he can form any new habit or break off any old one and so 
control his desires and his conduct as to accomplish (so far as 
it depends on his own action) anything he sets out to do. But 
the years take away a good deal of this confidence. The old man is 
not so certain. The memory of the times when he has not been 
able to say the thing he meant to say or to do the thing he meant 
to do is sure to subtract something from that reliance upon him- 
self which is the groundwork of the highest success in human 
endeavour. 



SOME BUSINESS EXPERIENCES 217 

SOME BUSINESS EXPERIENCES 

My father's profession as a teacher and a minister of the 
Society of Friends had removed him from any close connection 
with the financial world. He had, however, been fortunate in 
his investments. He once said to me, "My son, I buy these securi- 
ties when they are low. I hold them till they rise in value and 
then I sell them." How simple! 

Thus it was that my business training was of the most rudi- 
mentary character. A few months in a commercial college was 
all the instruction I ever received. I never considered myself a 
good business man, having had just about judgment enough 
to hold on to what I had and what was entrusted to me, without 
allowing serious impairment and with moderate returns upon 
investments. 

Once in my early law practice in New York I was induced to 
take certain parcels of real estate for a fee, and from that circum- 
stance began a series of trades in lots, farms, dwellings, stocks of 
hardware, etc., lasting a dozen years, in which, after endless 
trouble, great loss of time and tiresome complexities, I came out 
of the hole in about the same condition that I went in and very 
grateful for that. 

There is one incident in my business experience which illus- 
trates the benevolent care which the Tammany machine in New 
York City used to exercise over the people of that metropolis. 
I was the owner of a number of buildings in Chatham Street (now 
Park Row). I had leased one of these to a man named Bam- 
berger, who was prominent in Tammany Hall, and he had sublet 
it to another tenant. A fire broke out and destroyed part of the 
roof. The subtenant refused to leave the premises, although he 
paid no rent. I directed my agent to evict him, but when the 
case was brought up for trial, five witnesses were there prepared 
to testify that they had seen the rent paid — an absolute false- 
hood. Fearing he would be beaten in the suit, my agent dis- 
missed the case without prejudice to its renewal, and wrote me 
concerning the facts. 

I happened to be in New York a few days after this, and he 
told me that Bamberger, a politician who stood well with the city 



2i8 PERSONALIA 

authorities, had asked the Department of Buildings for a survey 
of the premises to ascertain whether they were not dangerous; 
that the first report was that they were entirely safe (which was 
the fact), but this not being what Bamberger wanted he secured 
a resurvey. According to this the building was declared danger- 
ous and an order vv^as issued that it be torn down immediately. 
I had no objection, for I wanted to rebuild. It was suggested 
that I see the Commissioner of Buildings. I went to his office 
and saw one of his subordinates, who told me of the special re- 
survey and the new order; he then offered to introduce me to 
his principal, but added, "Don't say anything to him of the con- 
sideration for this thing." 

I answered, "Consideration? What do you mean?" 

He turned to me in astonishment and said, "Why, aren't you 
the man we are doing this for?" 

I told him I was the owner, but had not asked for the survey 
and knew nothing about any consideration. He seemed dumb- 
founded, and I walked away. I directed my agent to begin again 
the proceedings to evict. The subtenant, who by this time had 
lost his nerve, allowed the case to go by default, and I secured 
possession. Here was a building quite safe, but which was 
ordered destroyed as dangerous for the sole purpose of ejecting 
a subtenant as a favour to a political friend and for a suitable 
"consideration!" 

It has been a rule of the family to talk freely about all our 
business affairs and investments. A man's family, the women 
as well as the men, ought to have knowledge of such things and 
should be encouraged to take an interest in his affairs. Many a 
wife would be more careful if she knew exactly how matters 
stood, and many a man could profit from the counsels of those 
at home who have an interest as great as his own in his pros- 
perity. I once had an interesting talk with Jules Cambon, former 
ambassador of France at Washington, on this subject. "Ameri- 
can husbands," he said, "are very kind to their wives, give them 
every luxury possible and humour them in every way, but do not 
make them their confidants. A woman will often know nothing 
of her husband's business. A French wife, on the other hand, is 
her husband's partner, helps him all she can, keeps his books, 



THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS 219 

perhaps tends his store or manages his investments. She is inter- 
ested in all he does and tries in every way to promote his suc- 
cess. That is much better for both of them." 



THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS 

I was, as we have seen, a "birthright member" of the Hicksite 
branch of the Society of Friends, whose doctrine was that each 
man should follow his own convictions of duty as his supreme 
guide of conduct. But I was often puzzled by the peculiar way 
in which a man's conscience acts. Not only is it true that from 
education, prejudice and surroundings one man believes to be 
a virtuous deed that which another considers a sin, but even where 
there is no doubt as to the quality of the act, our moral con- 
sciousness is affected by things which have no relation to guilt 
or innocence. The remorse one suffers for wrongdoing bears no 
proportion to actual guilt. If by our fault, death or some other 
disastrous consequences ensue to another, we reproach ourselves 
bitterly, whereas if no calamity occurs we never think of the 
matter again. A sinful act, if it remain unknown, will often pass 
with but little regret, but if discovery follow we do not cease 
to reproach ourselves. The degree of remorse is certainly an un- 
reliable test of the degree of guilt. Our own compunctions are 
like the law which punishes murder with death, yet gives the 
attempt at murder only a few years' imprisonment, although the 
failure to kill did not in the least affect the moral quality of 
the act. If this moral sense then is so unreliable, how far ought 
we trust to it? I could not tell. 

So I became a good deal of an agnostic in respect to this 
"inner light" as well as other things, and after the outbreak 
of the World War I found my views so radically different from 
those of Friends in respect to non-resistance that I determined 
to sever my connection with the Society and therefore resigned. 

And yet there were many of the principles of the Society with 
which I fully agreed. Friends have always been devoted to hu- 
man liberty, both physical and spiritual, and took an active part 
in the movement to free the slaves; they have been thoroughly 
democratic, recognising no special order of priesthood, nor rank of 



220 PERSONALIA 

any kind, and giving to women equal rights with men; they have 
always stood for temperance and sobriety in daily life and for 
honesty in their dealings with others; they have always urged 
plainness of speech, behaviour and apparel. This for a long 
time was shown in the Quaker garb and broadbrim and the "thee 
and thou," now largely discarded, but its essential features — 
freedom from ostentation and the candid expression of honest con- 
viction — are still am.ong the things they inculcate. And in connec- 
tion with their principles of non-resistance, with which I could 
not agree, they always tried to teach that love of justice and fair 
play which will in most cases remove the causes for strife. Al- 
though Friends have now discarded some of the peculiarities 
which distinguished them and have become in outward appear- 
ance more like the "world's people," yet on the other hand the 
w^orld itself has, in the foregoing matters, become more like the 
Quakers. 

The Society of Friends has represented an important phase in 
the development of the English-speaking peoples. The organisa- 
tion will last as long as the world has need for it. But whether 
its existence be permanent or whether the work shall be carried 
on by other hands, its record will always be one of the creditable 
pages in history. 

I still feel a subtle sympathy with many of its earlier ways 
which have fallen into disuse, and cherish precious recollections 
of old-fashioned Friends, and old shingle meeting-houses shaded 
by big trees, with plain, impainted benches inside (the men's side 
separated from the women's side by shutters), and where perhaps 
the only sounds heard from the time you entered till the time you 
left were the songs of the birds coming in through the open 
windows. 

It is the quiet kind of religion which sinks deepest into the heart, 
the kind which shines in the pale and modest faces of Sisters of 
Charity and Mercy on their visits to the sick and poor; the kind 
that guides the life of your plain neighbour and old friend who 
perhaps never said a word to you about salvation, yet who always 
lent a helping hand in time of need and whose example was a 
shining light; the sort of faith which beams from the clear, 
earnest eyes of some little Quaker lady who would not "speak in 



RETROSPECT 221 

meeting" for the world, but whose very presence is an inspiration 
to those around her. Fortunate is the man whose boyhood has 
been watched by eyes like these. 



RETROSPECT 

Looking back from the age of seventy years and more upon 
the various opinions, political, social and religious, which I held 
in earlier times, I find that I have changed very few of them. 
The abhorrence of human slavery inculcated in childhood, when 
our house was a station of the underground railway, has remained 
through life. 

My adherence to the Republican Party in early manhood still 
seems to me justified by what that party had done, and my tem- 
porary alienation from it, in the support of Cleveland, still appears 
reasonable and right. 

In my faith in Theodore Roosevelt I have seen no ground 
for change and continue to regard it as a supreme achievement 
that I was able to win and to keep the warm and abiding friend- 
ship of this great man. His sudden death seemed like an eclipse 
darkening the world, and when, on the following day, returning 
from Indianapolis, I saw upon my table two short notes, just 
received, signed with the dear familiar hand that could then 
write no more, it seemed that much of that which made life valua- 
ble had passed away. 

I still believe in the public measures espoused at an early 
period; some of them are now accomplished facts, others are on 
the way to fulfilment; woman suffrage, civil service reform, 
proportional representation, the manager form of city government, 
an international court of justice, and in some shape a league of 
nations — these still seem to me to have been worthy of support. 
As to the need of preparing to take our part in the great war, it 
must now be clear to all that the warnings vainly sounded during 
the first two years of the struggle were only too well justified 
by the event. 

On two subjects I was certainly mistaken. In ''Slav and 
Saxon" I expressed the opinion that the growth and spread of 
the Russian autocracy was the greatest menace to liberal insti- 



222 PERSONALIA 

tutions. It did not turn out that way. It was Germany 
who was the most dangerous aspirant for universal dominion. 
The sudden collapse of the Russian autocracy by revolution has 
changed the character of the Muscovite menace, and to-day the 
greatest danger in that quarter is from the propagation of the 
communist doctrines so suddenly adopted. 

There is another subject upon which my views have changed. 
In earlier life I was a strong individualist, a believer in the doc- 
trines of Herbert Spencer and John Stuart Mill. But society has 
been drifting the other way. Government has gradually and 
inevitably assumed greater powers everywhere, supplanting and 
eliminating in measure the independent action of the individual 
in favour of a larger collectivism. I have realised this necessity 
and believe that it may extend still further than at present, but 
that it should never reach the ideal of a socialistic state in which 
the main incentives to industry would be stifled. 

PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 

And at the end of these seventy years, what is the conclusion 
as to a true philosophy of life? In my early youth metaphysics 
were very alluring, but in college all fondness for these was shaken 
by the study of Hickok's Empirical Psychology, "The Mind as 
Revealed in Consciousness," for the learned author described the 
mind with various compartments and functions which I could not 
identify; they must have been revealed to the consciousness of 
somebody else. I felt at first disgusted that I was lacking in the 
faculty of knowing my own mind, but finally came to believe 
that much of the author's philosophy was the product of his 
imagination. 

Then Dr. Barnard's "Ontological Argument," in his lectures 
on the "Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion," seemed so 
unsubstantial that I came to the conclusion that this kind of 
philosophy did not lead anywhere. I have retained that convic- 
tion and eschewed all abstract metaphysics down to this day. 

Among Von Scheffel's charming descriptions of mediaeval scenes 
in "Ekkehard" is one where two Hunnish chiefs, Hornebog and 
EUak, with their horde of barbarians, invade the cloister of 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 223 

St. Gallus and come upon an illuminated manuscript. Hornebog 
lifts it on the point of his sword and asks Ellak what it is. Ellak 
tells him it is the work of one Boethius on the "Consolations of 
Philosophy." 

"Philosophy?" asks Hornebog. "What kind of a consolation is 
that?" 

"It isn't a pretty woman nor good drink. It's hard to describe 
in Hunnish, If a man does not know why he is in the world 
and turns himself upside down to find out, that is what they call 
philosophy in this western country. The man who comforted 
himself this way in the tower at Pavia was clubbed to death." 

"Served him right," said Hornebog. "Whosoever has a sword 
in his hand and a horse's back between his shanks knows very 
well why he is in the world." 

I must confess great sympathy with this barbarian. An active 
life has little need of metaphysics. 

There are, however, a few practical precepts that seem useful 
in adding to the sum of a man's happiness. Perhaps the most 
cheerful among these is the maxim that since there are two sorts 
of evils, things you can help and things you cannot, a man ought 
not to worry about the first, but do what he can to mend them; 
nor about the second, for that does not do the slightest good. 
Of course there are some griefs so overwhelming that no maxim 
can turn them aside, but I have found this one of real value in 
diminishing many of the vexations of life. 

Little has been the need, however, even of this sort of philoso- 
phy in a life singularly free from vexations. Not only have I been 
able to follow the pursuits most congenial, not only have I lived 
long in a home I would not change for any other, but in that 
field which touches a man's inmost being I have been fortunate 
far beyond my deserts. I have had at all times the unfailing love 
of those who were dearest to me. Most of them are still here, 
and of those who are gone no memory is tinged with a shadow 
of remorse or bitterness. 

Returning to my simple philosophy, one thing distinctly no- 
ticeable is that very few people seem to realise what is important 
and what is not. It sometimes requires a great grief to convince 
a man how utterly futile are the commonplace cares of life. The 



2 24 PERSONALIA 

main thing is to keep our aims on adequate things. It is per- 
haps not so important to do a great many things as to see that 
everything done is worth the doing. 

Another maxim which experience confirms is the old one that 
in most things the middle course is the wisest. There is hardly 
any subject to which this does not apply. Take, for instance, 
selfishness and altruism; a reasonable regard for one's own inter- 
est is not only necessary to personal success, but is of advantage 
to the world, for if each man does well for himself the com- 
munity will be prosperous. Yet selfishness, to be valuable either 
to its possessor or to mankind, must be enlightened selfishness, 
illumined by sympathy, by public spirit and by the consciousness 
that our own highest good can be obtained only in conjunction 
with the welfare of those around us. Co-operative effort will do 
immensely more in most things than mere individual effort; yet 
that collectivism which would wholly stifle a man's independent 
action, in industry or in society, would be deadening to the whole. 
The true path lies between the extremes. 

And there it lies in respect to other things — between avarice 
and prodigalit}'', between asceticism and self-indulgence, between 
obstinacy and vacillation, between tyranny and license, between 
severity and laxity in discipline. We may err in fixing the pre- 
cise point where the golden mean is to be found, but we will not 
often err in avoiding extremes on either side. Human society, 
like nature, advances by degrees, by certain compromises between 
a new thought or a new organism and its surroundings, and those 
who seek to reach at a bound the final goal rarely accomplish 
much practical good. While it is unsafe to treat any maxim or 
formula outside of mathematics as of universal application, and 
while for effective immediate action half-way measures are some- 
times disastrous, there are few rules of conduct more generally 
true than that expressed in the ancient phrase, "In medio tutissi- 
mus ibis." 

It is sometimes said that the old man clings just as tenaciously 
to life and dreads the final hour as much as the young man. I 
do not believe this is true. While I was preparing for the active 
work of life I was attacked by a severe case of malarial fever 
followed by tuberculosis. After two years of vigorous treatment 



PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 225 

the trouble disappeared. But during that time it seemed as if 
a menace were continually hanging over me, as if my way were 
beset by the footsteps of the destroyer. Life was just opening 
with its visions of happiness and usefulness and the idea of pass- 
ing away was like a nightmare. 

But in recent years, although once dangerously ill, I had no 
such feeling of dismay. When your course has been run, why 
murmur that you are near the end? A few years more or less 
— what does it matter? From the long suffering which often 
precedes final dissolution there is still a shrinking and from the 
grief of parting with those I love and because of their sorrow 
when I am gone. But of death itself I have no particle of dread 
and trust that when it comes I may still be content. 

Three score and ten! The tumult of the world 

Grows dull upon my inattentive ear; 
The bugle calls are faint, the flags are furled, 

Gone is the rapture, vanished too the fear, 
The evening's blessed stillness covers all, 

As o'er the fields she folds her cloak of grey; 
Hushed are the winds, the brown leaves slowly fall, 

The russet clouds hang on the fringe of day. 
What fairer hour than this? No stir of morn. 

With cries of wakening life, nor shafts of noon — 
Hot tresses from the flaming Sun-god torn — 

Nor midnight's shivering stars and marble moon; 
But softly twilight falls and toil doth cease, 
While o'er my soul God spreads His mantle — peace. 

— Life's Evening. 



APPENDIX I 

INDIANA'S OUTPUT. SPEECH BEFORE THE 

INDIANA SOCIETY OF CHICAGO, JANUARY 28. 1908 

In a negro church in an Indiana town the pastor tlius addressed his 
congregation : "Brudderen and Sisters, ma sermon is divided into 
t'ree pahts — de subjick, de subjick mattah, and de 'rousement. As de 
hour is late we will omit de fust two pahts and proceed direckly to de 
'rousement." And he did. Now with me the subject and the subject- 
matter of my toast are too gigantic for after-dinner treatment. The 
after-dinner speech should correspond in length with the skirt of the 
ballet dancer, "qui commen^ait a peine et finissait deja." And, alas I 
I have not the Ethiopian qualifications for the " 'rousement." Indiana's 
output! Where shall I begin and where shall I end? The diminutive 
city from which I come proposed a year ago to celebrate the centennial 
of its existence. It is an older place than Chicago and naturally looks 
down upon the metropolis as a parvenu. We issued a prospectus with 
a list of one hundred and twelve Richmond authors! If these great 
men are unknown to the rest of mankind, why, that is the fault of the 
world, not ours. Dr. Johnson could give a definition, but not the 
capacity to comprehend it. My town can furnish authors, but not the 
ability to appreciate them. 

But the literary fertility of Richmond is a mere sample. The mass 
of Indiana's output everywhere is immense, and the topics are in- 
finitely varied. We have the homespun and the hero, the Bard of Alamo, 
to give us in pathetic measures certain illustrative details of the Monon 
wreck, and more aspiring scribes to furnish us with the most select 
assortments of Kankakee princesses and the most regal types of 
Kokomo kings ! Ah, would that I could adequately describe the traits 
and the triumphs of Indiana's output in literature ! I would do it with 
the sympathetic touch of that artist who, in the basement of No. 81 
Washington Street, of your city, under the figure of a charming lady, 
placed the seductive words, "John Robertson, Portrait Painter — Beau- 
ties accentuated and likeness preserved." But, alas ! my slender talents 
make such portraiture impossible. I can only say "Look around you." 

But is not that enough? When we look upon ourselves, who of us is 
there that can remain unconvinced that Attica was barren indeed, even 
in intellectual achievements, by the side of the Hoosier State? What 
was Aristophanes in the shadow of Ade, Demosthenes at the fee/ 

227 



228 APPENDIX I 

of Beveridge, or Pericles as the boss of a little Athenian toy machine, 
a rudimentary screw of Archimedes in comparison with the Lusitanian 
turbine operated by the mighty Fairbanks? What were Parrhasius and 
Zeuxis when compared with our gifted toastmaster? ^ There is an 
utter lack of perspective in calling Crawfordsville the "Athens of 
Indiana." A better sense of proportion will lead future generations to 
consider Athens as the Crawfordsville of a ruder and more barbarous 
age. 

Led for so many years through the valley of humility by the meek 
and lowly Beveridge, we have all worn the violet too long — it is time 
to thrust the sunflower through our buttonholes. Walt Whitman sang 
himself. Let us, to more majestic measures, sing ourselves. Oh, 
that I had the power of Zeus to compel, not the clouds, but the 
recognition of the Universe for the hegemony of Indiana in all things 
that sparkle with divine fire ! 

We ought to take, once and for all, that attitude of conscious worth 
portrayed in the immortal stanza: 

"There was a young prince of Siam 
Who met up with Omar Khayyam. 
Said the prince then to Omar, 
'You're better than Homer.' 
Said Omar Khayyam., 'I am.' " 

Some years ago, a philanthropist, determined at last to do justice 
to our State, projected a book entitled "The American Biographical 
History of Eminent and Self-Made Men in Indiana" and went about 
the State soliciting subscriptions. The price, including a biography of 
each subscriber, was twenty-five dollars, and seventy-five additional for 
a steel engraving. For the purpose of accuracy, blanks were fur- 
nished to each of these subscribers, which they themselves filled out, 
making skeletons of their respective illustrious lives, which were after- 
wards padded out in appropriate "good English" by the editor. When 
the book appeared it consisted of two enormous volumes, containing 
biographies by the thousands of the representatives of Indiana's great- 
ness. A number of the sketches bear unmistakable evidence that they 
are the handiwork of the great ones whose lives they respectively 
dehneate, and as to many of these self-made men, no one would suspect 
any diviner origin ! An encouraging feature of the work was the 
proof it gave of the large proportion of Indiana's great men who are 
still living. Dead men tell no tales and pay no bills, wherefore the 
words of the poet that "all who tread the earth are but a handful to 
the tribes that slumber in its bosom" have been strangely reversed in 

^ Mr. John McCutcheon, cartoonist for the Chicago Tribune. 



APPENDIX I 229 

the case of the celebrated men of Indiana. Scarcely one in fifty is 
dead. 

The book goes quite fully into details; but in relation to the great 
no item can be considered trifling. We are told, for instance, that a 
certain physician is five feet, nine inches in height ; that he weighs 
one hundred and ninety pounds. These facts art interesting, not only 
to those who know him, but to the world at large, to whom he is a 
worthy object of emulation in these respects. 

Another satisfactory thing shown by the book is the estimable and 
even perfect characters of the great men of our State. Elsewhere 
greatness has its faults ; in Indiana it appears to be dimmed by not 
even a foible. We read of a distinguished townsman that "his life 
has been eminently marked by perfect probity; he never withholds 
one penny's worth in submitting the valuation of his property for 
assessment." What a model for our contemplation ! The only suspi- 
cious circumstance is the silence of the biography regarding the other 
great men of Indiana in this respect. 

Some names indeed are missing which we should expect to see. 
But where a man is unwilling to pay the moderate sum of twenty- 
five dollars for an eternal name he deserves to be consigned to 
oblivion. 

But even in immortality there must be pre-eminence. Some names 
must occur more readily to the memory than others. In a school 
in Denmark the problem was given : "Name six animals native to 
Greenland." The class was silent till a little girl raised her hand. 
"What are they, Ingeborg?" 

"Four seals and two polar bears." 

At one of our Richmond schools a much simpler question was 
propounded : "Name fifty of the most distinguished of the living 
novelists of Indiana." Plain and easy as that question was, the 
class failed to respond until a small boy stood up with that confi- 
dence which is the offspring of exact science and replied: "Twenty 
Booth Tarkingtons, ten Majors, fifteen McCutcheons and five Mere- 
dith Nicholsons 1" 

Thus does pre-eminence assert itself. 

I feel a special pride, too, in the statesmanship of Indiana. I feel 
drawn to it by ties of kindred almost as closely as I feel drawn to my 
friend Tarkington. In him, gentlemen, you see that glorious combi- 
nation of statesmanship and literature, which, like the universal genius 
of the Renaissance, sheds its lustre over all time. In me, too, gentle- 
men, I wish you could see the same thing. I would be, as it were, 
a moon to his sun, but the moon's rays are different. With him, if 
I judge aright his past career, his literature greatly outweighs his 
statesmanship. But in my softer and kindlier light I feel convinced 
that my statesmanship greatly outweighs my literature. It is probably 



230 APPENDIX 1 

quite unknown to you that there is any literature at all, but there is; 
and literature, strange as it may seem to you, of the most important 
character. I have recently translated "The History of the Langobards" 
(a people closely and intimately related to our own most vital inter- 
ests) by Paul the Deacon, a monk of the time of Charlemagne, to 
whom the Hoosier State is naturally drawn by ties of closest sym- 
pathy. By assiduous entreaty I have persuaded some twenty or 
thirty of my personal friends to accept gratuitously that number of 
author's copies and have thus secured a limited circulation of this 
invaluable work. Pardon me for mentioning the subject here. An 
opportunity like this for the dissemination of useful knowledge on 
such an important matter may not occur again. 

This contribution to historical literature is perhaps not unlike the 
efforts of the Norwegian girl, just landed in Boston, to secure a 
situation. 

"Can you cook?" asked the enquiring employer. 

"No." 

"Can you wash and iron?" 

"No." 

"Can you sew?" 

"No." 

"Can you wait on table?" 

"No." 

"Can you make the beds?" 

"No." 

"What can you do?" 

"I can milk a reindeer." 

The demand for Paul the Deacon in Indiana seems equal to the 
demand for reindeer-milking in universal Boston. There is need for 
more specialization. Tarkington may cook, Riley may sew, Nicholson 
may make the beds. Major may wash and McCutcheon sweep the 
rooms, but when the time comes to milk the reindeer then look to 
me. 

But if I feel an interest in Indiana literature and statesmanship, 
my devotion to Indiana journalism is not less enthusiastic. I am almost 
a journalist myself; indeed, I feel quite a journalist when it comes to 
paying the bills for running the paper. Well, Indiana journalism has 
spoken. It has spoken in praise of Indiana statesmanship, and these 
are its words, uttered at the meeting of Republican editors in respect 
of Indiana's candidate for the Presidency :2 

"In him we see embodied the perception of a Lincoln, the dignity of 
a Grant, the wisdom of a Harrison, the gentleness of a McKinley and 
the fearlessness of a Roosevelt, a combination of attributes that round 

2 Fairbanks. 



APPENDIX I 231 

out a man superbly equipped for the duties and responsibilities of Chief 
Executive." 

In thus honouring its great leader and sustainer (I will not say pro- 
prietor) Indiana journalism honoured itself! Can any son of Indiana 
look upon our candidate and compare him with the one who dwells 
beyond our eastern border •'' without feeling that longitude is more 
stately than latitude and altitude more lofty than avoirdupois? 

Scarcely less distinguished than in literature and statesmanship is 
Indiana's output in finance. Metternich said of Napoleon that the 
quality he most admired was "la grande sitnplicite de la marche de son 
esprit." During the late panic the conduct of the bankers of Indi- 
anapolis was characterised by principles of Napoleonic simplicity — they 
supported our financial fabric by simply and unpretentiously hanging 
on to every dollar they had and all they could get — no country bank 
could draw, no depositor could become extravagant, and thus by 
encouraging the precepts of high thinking and plain living they stood 
as an irresistible bulwark between the iniquities of Wall Street on the 
one side and the demands of their depositors and correspondents upon 
the other. 

And what shall I say of Indiana's output in jurisprudence? The 
gentleman you have just heard sang the praises of the country lawyer. 
Our Bar is indeed incomparable, but what would it be without the 
Bench? And what bench can compare with that which Indiana has 
given to the world? For it was a Hoosier jurist, an Orpheus in ermine, 
whose tones first awakened the sweet, sad, remonstrant voices of Stand- 
ard Oil and called forth their feline harmonies from out the eternal 
silences ! To him we owe the notes of the president of the Indiana 
corporation, who, 

"As a wakeful bird 
Sang darkling, and in shadiest covert hid 
Tuned his nocturnal note." 

Could Coke or Mansfield or John Marshall ever have wrought the 
miracle? Nature demanded more — she required the union of Kenesaw 
Mountain with the Hoosier State.* 

There is of course Indiana's output in baser and grosser things, a 
few hundred thousand Studebaker wagons, a few million Oliver 
ploughs, an infinite number of Hoosier drills sent to all parts of the 



» Taft. 

■* Judge Kenesaw M. Landis had fined the Standard Oil Company 
some twenty-odd millions of dollars (the limit of the law) and had 
thereby elicited the first public remonstrance from any of the officers 
of the company, who had previously ignored all complaints. 



232 APPENDIX 1 

universe, and threshers and reapers and harvesters and engines and 
the smokestacks of countless industries "waving" (I quote the editorial 
association) "their black plumes in the sky!" And railroads! Oh, so 
many, and such railroads ! Whizzing and tooting and rattling before 
the doors of every Hoosier farmer! But all such things I scorn — the 
dehghts of the spirit alone invite me. 

And you who have left us, do you reflect what you have done? How 
could you thus lightly abandon the things of the soul for the mere 
delights of the flesh? Indiana, as my successor will show you, is a 
State of Mind! How different from Illinois! Indiana journalism 
asked me for a manuscript of what I was going to say to you — Chicago 
made the unintellectual demand of a photograph! And you have 
moved from Indiana to Chicago! Moved from Parnassus to the 
Cloaca Maximal How could you do it? 



APPENDIX II 

ADDRESS AT THE OPENING SESSION OF THE NATIONAL 

AMERICAN WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION, 

WASHINGTON, D. C, FEB. i8, 1890 

There is no subject upon which the indignation of our people is 
more easily aroused than in regard to crimes against the suffrage. 
From Dan to Beersheba, after each election, come complaints of force 
and fraud. Investigations follow, and once in a while there is a trial 
and a conviction for some oflFence against the election laws. What is the 
gist of these offences? It is that in some way contrary to law, some 
citizen is deprived of his equal voice in the making and administration 
of these laws. 

Now, if the only thing of importance is the enactment of good laws 
or their administration by good ofBcers, it might be of little consequence 
how the latter are chosen. The forged tally-sheet might return the 
best man. The suppression of the negro vote in the South has resulted 
in greater intelligence and honesty in the administration of State 
affairs. If, by expending a little money at the polls, you save a vast 
amount of money to the protected interests of the country, what is the 
harm? If you have a good government, what matter how you get it? 
But yet there lies behind this sophistry the conviction that the 
fundamental right of self-government, the right of each man to cast 
his single vote and have it counted as it is cast, is of greater and 
more lasting importance than any of the temporary consequences which 
flow from the result of the election; that beyond all matters of ex- 
pediency and good administration, lies the great question of human 
liberty and equality, which can only be maintained by the uncor- 
rupted equal suffrage of every citizen; and so sacred is this in the 
eyes of the law that years of penitentiary service are prescribed for 
the interference with the right of a single human being of the male 
sex to cast the vote which the law allows him. 

But there may be a moral guilt, outside the law, of a character quite 
similar to that which is so punished when it comes within the terms 
of the statute; and it may be the crime, not of a single law-brcakcr, 
but of the entire community which establishes constitutions and enacts 
statutes denying equal rights to citizens who are subject to equal 
burdens. Wherever the simple rule of power is substituted for the 
just and equitable principle that all who are subject to government 
should have a voice in controlling it, we are guilty, under the form 

233 



234 APPENDIX II 

of law, of the same violation of the just rights of another for which 
the corrupter of elections and the forger of tally-sheets is tried, 
convicted and incarcerated. But from the remotest time the world 
has done this thing; equal rights have never been conceded to women; 
and so warped are our convictions by custom and prejudice that a 
denial of their political equality seems as natural as the breath we 
draw. 

How strongly we are moved by other cases of the violation of 
liberty! It is only a few days since the wrath of our people 
was awakened by the recital of outrages comm.itted upon the helpless 
body of a woman, a prisoner in Siberian mines ; and I think I do not 
mistake the sentiment of the people when I say that they attribute 
incidents like these, not to the sporadic cruelty of a single prison 
official, but to the abominable system which renders the life, liberty 
and property of every Russian, subject to the mere caprice of the 
autocrat and his minions. We say that it is monstrous that the fate 
of millions should depend upon the whim of a single man; that, in 
the eyes of the great and just Ruler of the universe, the helpless victim 
is the equal of the head of this organised persecution; and whatever 
may be our sentiments as to the means employed, we should have the 
heartiest sympathy with any proper effort by the Russian people to 
free themselves from this unnatural yoke. It is the principle of auto- 
cratic rule which is the inherent vice. No matter how good the Czar, 
so long as he denies to his subjects the power to participate in the 
government his administration is, and must be, wicked and unjust. 

So, too, with the Irish agitation. The English Government may give 
relief to tenants; it may lower their rents and give them an adminis- 
tration better than the one they would choose for themselves ; but the 
mere fact that this right of choice is taken from them, makes the rule 
of England a practical oppression. 

The thing was even more clearly shown in the revolt to which 
our national existence owes its origin. It was not the heaviness of 
the burden of the stamp act or the tax on tea; it was because any 
form of taxation without representation was tyranny, because all gov- 
ernment derived its just powers from the consent of the governed, that 
our fathers would not submit to English rule. 

And yet these things, that seem so plain and self-evident when we 
look at them from a distance, are vague and misty when they stand 
beside our own doors. Paternalism in government, which seeks to 
do good to the people against their will, is bad enough in the Czar 
of Russia and in old King George, but it is quite right and just when 
it affects our wives, sisters and daughters. They have everything 
they need; why ask the ballot? Ah, my friends, so long as they 
have not the right to determine the thing they need, so long as the 
ultimate power remains with us to say what is good and what 



APPENDIX II 23S 

is bad for them, they are deprived of that which we ourselves esteem 
the most precious of all rights. I suppose there never was a time 
when men did not believe that women had everything they ought to 
want; that they had as much as was good for them. The woman 
must obey, in consideration of the kind protection which her lord vouch- 
safes to her. The wife's property ought to belong to the husband, 
because upon him the law casts the burden of sustaining the family. 
There must be one ruler, and the husband ought to be that one. But 
this is the same principle which during centuries and thousands of 
years maintained the divine right of kings. When we apply it to 
our system of suffrage, the number of sovereigns is increased, that is 
all. The divine right of man to legislate for himself and woman too, 
is upheld by laws which receive the sanction of his vote alone. It is 
only a difference in the number of autocrats and the manner in which 
their decrees are promulgated. 

We object to human slavery, not merely on account of the individual 
instances of hardship and outrage which it entails, but because we 
believe that, however kind the master, it is wrong in principle that 
the destinies of one man should be confided to the keeping of another. 
But put this proposition in another shape, it is equally unjust that the 
destinies of one race should be placed under the control of alien blood; 
and in still another shape, it is equally unjust that the rights of one 
sex should be granted or withheld solely at the good pleasure of the 
other. The sovereignty is just as complete which is exercised in the 
form of general laws. There is some amelioration of the practical 
conditions, but the principle is just as iniquitous. 

And this unjust principle is sure to give rise to unjust laws. There 
never was a time when men in their legislation respected in all par- 
ticulars the equal rights of women. They certainly did not under the 
older systems. The laws of Manu prescribed that at no time should 
a woman govern herself according to her own will. Before she was 
married she was subject to her father, then to her husband, and, he 
dying, to her sons ; or if she had none, then to her nearest male rela- 
tive, and in default of this, to the king. At no time could she rule 
herself according to her own will. The Greeks improved but little 
upon this idea. Among the Romans, a woman's property and civil 
rights were mainly at the disposal of either her father or her husband. 
By the Code Napoleon of France, the joint property belonged to the 
husband, and however brutal he might be, he could compel her to live 
with him, even if he had to bring her to his home between a brace 
of gendarmes. The common law of England was just as bad. When 
she married, all her personal property became her husband's by the 
act of marriage, all her outstanding claims were his as soon as he 
saw fit to reduce them to possession. Her real estate belonged to him 
during their joint lives; or if a child was born to them, remained his 



236 APPENDIX II 

for life; not a penny nor foot of land could she call her own. The 
children were subject to his will; and he might beat her pro- 
vided the rod were no thicker than the judge's thumb. Gradually 
these hard conditions have been ameliorated, but still her condition 
remains one of inequality. There are States in which she cannot make 
a contract, where her own earnings do not belong to her; and even 
where these iniquities have been swept away, the door is still closed 
to all political preferment. All this as the law tells us is for her 
good. 

Now, I am utterly opposed to every form of doing good to people 
against their will. I am opposed to every sort of divine right, whether 
of a king or an aristocracy, of a single race or of a single sex. If 
woman did not suffer from this absence of political power, it would 
be the only instance in history where a class deprived of political rights 
has not been the worse for this disability. In the progress of civilisa- 
tion from despotism to constitutional government, one class after an- 
other, one race after another, found that some share in the government 
was necessary for the protection of its rights. The barons wrested 
it from King John ; the wealthy burghers acquired the right to share 
it with the barons. Gradually through the various strata of society 
filtered this divine right, this right of sovereignty, this right of suffrage, 
until at last it has been extended even to the lowest. 

So in America : first it was a property qualification, then it was a 
race qualification. Step by step has the franchise been extorted from 
its exclusive possessors, until now it embraces practically the entire 
human family of the male sex. If the principles upon which these 
advances have been made are true, the movement cannot stop here. 

It is wrong in principle to say to our sisters what avenues of activity 
and employment shall be open to them and what shall be barred ; and 
it is just as wrong to close the single gate of political preferment as 
to shut them out from any other lawful occupation. By what argu- 
ment can you justify it, and defend your own political liberty? By 
what argument can you defend your own suffrage as a right and not 
concede an equal right to her? A just man ought to accord to every 
other human being, even to his own wife, the rights which he demands 
for himself. 

"But she has her sphere, and she ought not to go beyond it." My 
friend, who gave you the right to determine what that sphere should 
be? If nature prescribes it, nature will carry out her own ordinances 
without your prohibitory legislation. I have the greatest contempt for 
the sort of legislation which seeks to enable nature to enforce her 
own immutable laws. I should have very little respect for any decree, 
enacted with whatever solemnity, which prescribed that an object 
should fall towards the earth and not from it; and I have just as little 
respect for any statute of man which enacts that mothers shall continue 



APPENDIX II 237 

to love their children, by shutting women out from political action and 
preferment lest they should neglect the duties of the household. 

I was much amused at the recent colloquy between Mrs. Stanton and 
the chairman of the Congressional Committee, when he asked her 
whether woman would not lose much of the refining influences that 
now bless our race, if political opportunities were thrown open to her. 
What ! Lose refining influences because the field of her opportunity 
is widened? If that be true, the Turk is a great deal more logical 
than the American. There we have the refining influences of the 
seraglio, the household sphere. There we find woman preserved, not 
only from the rude gaze of men, not only from the degrading commerce 
of the world, but even from the kisses of the sun upon her face. 
If her sphere be always to stay at home to look after her children, 
whether she have any children or not, the customs of our Oriental 
brothers are admirably calculated to accomplish this result. How 
desperately the refining influences of the sexes were sacrificed when 
the doors of church and college, of Sunday-school and hospital, were 
thrown open to her, and the defiling touch of the thousand occupations 
in which even now, according to our perverted notions, she can hon- 
ourably engage ! How desperately the rude commerce with the world 
in society, in the church, nay, even in the galleries of the Quaker 
meeting-house, has shattered that gentle and refining influence! Has 
it never occurred to the wise legislators who would fasten her to the 
cradle by statute, that every one of these encroachments upon woman's 
sphere has made her a better mother and a better wife; that the child 
whom she trains, and the husband whose helpmate she is, is the better 
for them? And if that be true, when so many steps are taken towards 
her complete emancipation, why fear to add the final one, the last, and 
say that in this thing as in all others, the condition of the largest lib- 
erty is the condition of the highest development? 

But some of our statesmen to-day, who have outgrown Mr. Jeffer- 
son and the Declaration of Independence, who do not believe that 
taxation without representation is tyranny, or that the government 
derives its just powers from the consent of more than half the gov- 
erned,— these men say that suffrage is no right, but a privilege con- 
ferred upon a certain body of people for the best good of the State. 
Who conferred it? Who had the right to? Who has the divine 
authority to withhold it from another? To what higher power, what 
court of last resort, can we appeal? Who must pass upon the qualifi- 
cations? Sovereignty resides somewhere. We say that its ultimate 
abode is among the entire body of the people, rich and poor, black 
and white, male and female; that to assert anything different from 
this is simply to declare the law of the strongest. 

But some of the politicians of this day have not hesitated to take this 
ground, which is indeed the last refuge of the opponent of woman 



238 APPENDIX 11 

suffrage. Women must not vote because they do not fight. But if 
women are to be excluded on such a ground, then why not the aged, 
the infirm, the cripples? And, if men who cannot fight are to be 
left out, with still greater reason should those who can and will not. 
The army should cast the suffrage, and the elections by the Praetorian 
guard in the declining days of the Roman Empire, when they put up 
the imperial purple to the highest bidder, and old Didius Julianus car- 
ried away the prize, — this form of government is the perfect model 
upon which our institutions ought to repose. The Kaffir who buys his 
wife and kills her when he likes, saying, "I have bought her once for 
all, and she is mine," this man only carries out to its logical conse- 
quences the monstrous doctrine that force is after all the just basis 
of all human government. 

Let us ask ourselves how we should like to be disfranchised, and 
from the answer let us determine whether we have the right to refuse 
suffrage to any woman who asks it. 

"But, say you, "woman is already adequately represented. She does 
not form a separate class. She has no interests different from those 
of her husband, brother, or father." These arguments have been used 
even by so eminent an authority as John Bright. Is it indeed a fact? 
Wherever woman owns property which she would relieve from unjust 
taxation ; wherever she has a son whom she would preserve from 
the temptations of intemperance, or a daughter from the enticements 
of a libertine, or a husband from the conscriptions of war ; she has a 
separate interest which she is entitled to protect. "But she can con- 
trol legislation by her influence." If she has influence, she is entitled 
to that and her vote too. You have no right to burn down a man's 
house because you leave him his lot. "But woman does not want 
the suffrage." How do you know? Did you give her an opportunity 
of saying so? Wherever the right has been accorded, it has been 
exercised, and the best proof of her wishes is the actual use which 
she makes of the ballot when she has it. But it makes no difference 
whether all women want to vote, or whether most women want to 
vote ; so long as there is one woman who insists upon this simple right, 
the justice of man cannot afford to deny it. Would it be an answer 
to my claim for suffrage that a majority of the men in my town or 
my State did not want it? So long as I need it to protect my interests, 
it matters not how many of my fellows may be indifferent to theirs. 

We talk too much as if this question depended upon how women 
were going to exercise the right when they have it. What should we 
men think if we were told that we could have the ballot, provided 
we would vote in the way that somebody else might think was right? 
Would not our indignant answer be, "It is none of your business how 
I vote; that matter I will determine for myself!" The suffrage under 
the Bonapartes was once defined to be "the inalienable right which 



APPENDIX II 239 

every Frenchman has to cast one vote for the eldest male heir of the 
family." It is this sort of a right which these men propose to confer, 
who talk beforehand about the way in which women are likely to vote, 
as reasons for bestowing or for withholding the suffrage. 

Do you still say, my antediluvian friend, that woman is intellectu- 
ally inferior? When you went to school, who stood at the head of 
your class? Was it a boy or a girl? I have heard of classes where 
the boy was first. I did not belong to one. Wherever woman has 
been tried as a sovereign, she has proved not merely equal to the 
average, but to the highest instances of kingcraft. What name so 
eminent in English history for wisdom and executive energy as that 
of Elizabeth? Who so profoundly revered in Spain as Isabella of 
Castile? Next to the great Peter, Catherine the Second of Russia 
was the ablest of its administrators ; and no name among the sovereigns 
of Austria is so deeply cherished as that of Maria Theresa. Charles 
the Fifth chose women to govern his provinces, because, as he said, 
he found them better qualified than men for administrative duties. 
When John Stuart Mill examined the affairs of India and discovered 
a province governed with special ability, its affairs economically admin- 
istered, peace and prosperity at home and respect abroad, it was almost 
uniformly under the control, not of a man, but of an Indian princess. 
It is but seldom that woman has had an opportunity, but where she has, 
it is not in that kind of work at least that her inferiority appears. They 
say she never wrote a great epic nor painted a Transfiguration. This 
might be an excuse, and a very poor one, for passing laws forbidding 
women to paint or to write poetry ; but it is the worst possible excuse 
for a rule excluding them from duties which they have positively 
proved their ability to perform. 

In matters of business, her experience may not have been so wide 
as ours, but in the matter of moral purity, her standard is higher. 
Is that the best system of government which gives a voice to intem- 
perance and violence, which it denies to the virtue and purity of home? 
Ought not a complete representative government to include the types 
of its better as well as its baser qualities? The constitution of Indiana 
gives a vote to the pauper and the idiot as well as to the criminal, 
after his term is up and his period of disfranchisement has expired. In 
one of the last elections, the imbeciles in the poor farm at Indianapolis 
were brought to the polls in a body; and a man who, when asked his 
name, declared he was Jesus Christ, and another who had just intelli- 
gence enough to take in his hand a piece of paper handed to him by 
the political manager of the precinct and give it to the election officer, 
were permitted to make the laws which should tax the property and 
control the fortune of every woman in the State. I find it hard to 
understand the logic of the law-maker who prefers legislation by male 
idiots to legislation by women. In this case, as in every other, the 



240 APPENDIX II 

course prescribed by the simple rules of justice and duty is also the 
course demanded by common sense and the best interests of society. 
It is that our ultimate rights shall rest upon the equal suffrage of both 
the sexes, in the same sense and to the same extent that they now rest 
upon the suffrages of men alone ; that there is no limit to the true 
sphere of the lawful activities of woman except such as is prescribed 
in the fair field of competition by natural law. 

It is to bring about this equality that the National-American Woman 
Suffrage Association has been organised. It is for the purpose of 
greater efficiency that the two former associations have merged their 
separate existence in the new one. 

The Association is to be under the leadership of those whose eminent 
names, invaluable services, and wide experience give assurance of the 
highest efficiency; but even if it had been otherwise, our duty would 
have been the same : to follow with cheerfulness and alacrity in every 
measure which seeks the attainment of that single object for which 
we have come together. Let us work in the spirit of infinite for- 
bearance. Let us examine our own hearts and see whether there be 
any alloy in the golden motives which should actuate our efforts, and 
if there be, let us never rest until it be utterly consumed. 

Men call us dreamers ; but it is the dream of this generation which 
shall be the truth of history in generations to come. Thus has it 
always been, and thus will it always be. Amid the corruptions of 
declining Rome, men dreamed of a purer deity than the old gods of 
Greece. Neither the tortures of Nero's gardens nor the flaming eyes 
of the tigers of the amphitheatre could stifle the spirit of these dreams 
— dreams that were born in the darkness of the catacombs, dreams 
that made the dreamers brave and pure and just amid the universal 
corruption and debauchery around them ; dreams that rose with their 
pure spirits from amid the circles of the howling amphitheatre, and led 
them along the bright path of the sunlight of God's love. These men 
dreamed, and lo ! the new faith in which they put their trust, spread 
over all the earth, and buried beyond hope of resurrection the darker 
superstitions of antiquity. 

A sailor of Genoa dreamed of a great ball revolving in infinite 
space, of the temples and palm groves of India across the blue waters 
of the West, of a benighted and unbelieving world to whom he should 
carry the glad tidings of God's love. Courtiers repelled him, sage doc- 
tors in council called him heretic. Freighted with the burden of that 
dream, he trudged his weary way from land to land. Then the heart 
of a woman, pure and good, was made a sharer in that dream, and 
from that union arose a progeny of fruitful deeds. When we look 
upon the treasures which the civilisation of the Western Hemisphere 
has poured into our lap ; and as we glow with the great thought of 
America, the liberty that enlightens all the world, — let us ask our- 



APPENDIX II 241 

selves, where would these things have been if no Columbus had dared 
to dream away the superstitions of the centuries? 

We can hardly remember it now, but there was a time that we our- 
selves have seen in free America, when in this very city, human flesh 
was sold upon the auction block; when stripes and curses were the 
only payment offered for the negro's toil; when women with children 
at the breast followed for days and weeks, among the swamps and 
morasses of the South, that one star, the star of the North, of liberty ; 
the only friend that they had on earth. Then, too, men dreamed; 
dreamed of the time when this great curse should vanish. In season and 
out of season they preached their gospel of emancipation. They were 
reviled of men ; the jeers of the populace, the hootings of the mob, 
and even the rope of the hangman, were their portion ; but the flame of 
war passed over us, and the curse has rolled away. 

Garibaldi, in his island home, dreamed of United Italy; and lo! 
before our very eyes the deed is done. 

And men dream still. Amid the snows and darkness of Siberian win- 
ters, they dream of that liberty for whose sake they wear the chains 
and bear the stripes; dream of a great resurrection of holy Russia, 
when the song of the peasant shall no longer be freighted with the 
sadness which generations of oppression have poured into its cadences; 
and where even to them shall be given some measure of the 
right to make the laws which they must obey. And their dream, too, 
shall become a living reality. 

And woman, too, has dreamed, dreamed of the time when, equal with 
her brother in the last jot and tittle of every civil, social, and political 
right, she should have the power to exercise jointly with him that right 
of sovereignty, that right of suflFrage, upon which the security for 
every other right depends. Already half the prayer is granted. One 
by one the barriers of legal incapacity have been thrown down, and 
the gate of many an avenue to honour and wealth and profit, which 
had been closed against her, now yields to the pressure of a woman's 
hand. 

The great work goes on slowly and steadily to its accomplishment 
The little reverses which come from time to time, such as the denial 
of suflFrage in the State of Washington, are only the exceptions which 
serve to show more clearly the general drift of the tide. Shall we 
believe that these are permanent obstacles? We might as well say 
that the Mississippi will not reach the sea, because there are eddies in 
the current. The progress of humanity is certain. It will not stop 
until man and woman are equal in every right before the law. and 
government everywhere derives its just powers from the consent of 
the governed. 



INDEX 



Absolute, Sir Anthony, role of, 

41 

Ad Patriam, poem, loo 

Adams, Charles F., protest against 
Russian treaty, 96 

Adams monument in Rock Creek 
Cemetery, discussed with St 
Gaudens, 136, 137 

Addresses at Canton and Gettys- 
burg, 137 

Adler, FeHx, at Tuesday Club, 
56; anecdote of, 87; invites ad- 
dress on Proportional Repre- 
sentation, 93 

Agamemnon of yEschylus, prize 
examination on, 12 

Agnostics, complaints of appoint- 
ments of, 120 

Alabama Claims, Sumner on, 56 

to 59 
Aldrich, Thos. B., resents raillery 

on Boston, 64 to 66 
American Woman's Suffrage 

Assn., 85 
Ananias Club, gossip on Roose- 
velt, 147 to 150 
Anderson, Indiana speech at, on 

preparedness, 200 
Andromache, role of, in Trojan 

Women, 41 
Anthon, Prof. Chas., 8, 9 
Anthony, Susan B., 85, 86 
Anti-Imperialism, 107 
Anti-Slavery movement, 100 
Anti-Slavery Society, dissolution 

of, Id 
Antiques in Richmond home, 31, 

32 
Arbitration, international, 180 
Art Association of Richmond, 

Ind., 35 to 37 
Atlantic Monthly, article in, on 

Knights of the Golden Circle, 

206, 207 
Austria, at outbreak of war, 190, 

191 
Autobiography, discussion of, i, 

2; stanza, i 



243 



Baddeck, 135 

Ballinger, Richard A., 157 
Bar, examination for, 14 
Barnard, F. A. P., 9, 10, li, 222 
Beach, candidate for Federal 

judge, 147 to 150 
Beecher trial, speech of W. A. 

Beach in, 28 
Belgium, in the war, 193, 194 
Bemis, George, author of Sum- 
ner's Memoirs, 59, 60 
Bennett, General Tom, 44 
Bickle, Col., 44, 45 
Bicycle, learning to ride, 215, 216 
Bigelow, John, 207 
Blackstone's definition of a court, 

14 
Blackwell, Henry B., 85 
Blaine, James G., charges against, 

74, 75 ; attractive personality, 

103, 104 
Bloomfield, home in, 18 ; burglars, 

18, 19 
Bonaparte, Charles J., President 

National Municipal League, 98; 

letter on Panama treaty, 126 
Boston, meeting of Civil Service 

Reform League, 65, 66; Reform 

Club, speech at, 106 
Breshkovsky, Catherine, 96, 97 
Brown, Jason B., State senator, 

72 ; Brown bill, 74 
Bryan, W. J., "Cross of Gold" 

speech, 105 ; speech at Chicago 

conference on trusts, 171 to 

173; Democratic Convention, 

173; defeated by McKinlcy, 173 
Bunau, Varilla, 125 
Burchcnal, C. H., 48, 49 
Burning a wreck, 215 
Business experiences, 217 



Calaveras grove of big trees, 17 
California, visit to, 16, 17 
Cambon, Jules, 2t8 
Campaic:n for State Senate, 70, 
71 ; Federal, 1916, 167 to 169 



244 



INDEX 



Cannon, Joseph, speaker, opposed 
by insurgents, 152 

Carnegie, Andrew, on prepared- 
ness, 199, 200 

Carter, James C, President Mu- 
nicipal League, 98 

Centennial Ode, Indiana, 191 6, 30, 
179 

Century, The, account in, of 
Morton's mission to France, 207 

Chapman, J. J., criticises Roose- 
velt, 112, 113 

Chase, Wm. M,, artist, 36, 2,7 

Chicago, address to Indiana So- 
ciety of, 63, 64, 227 to 232 ; Re- 
publican and Progressive con- 
ventions of 1912, in, 160 to 163 ; 
of 1916, 167, 168; conference on 
trusts in 1899, 170 to 176; in 
1907, 174 

Children of Liberty (verse), 190 

Childs, Richard S., President 
Proportional Representation 
League, 94 

Choate, Rufus, his manner of ar- 
guing cases, S3 

Cincinnati Times-Star, article in. 

Citizens' League criticises Roose- 
velt, 112, 113 

City and State, criticises Roose- 
velt, 112 

City government, manager form 
of, 221 

Civic Federation, Conference on 
trusts, 176, 178 

Civil Service Bill in State Senate, 

yy . . 

Civil Service Commission, ap- 
pointed to, 108, 109, 113; resign 
from, 138 

Civil Service Reform, 87 to 89, 
221; rerhiniscences of, 210, 211 

Civil Service Reform League, 
Boston meeting, 65, 66 

Clark, Dr. Alonzo, prescription 
for tuberculosis, 16 

Cleveland, Grover, 75, 77; re- 
movals by, on secret charges, 
88; his second administration, 
T05; Venezuela message, 57 to 
60 

Cleveland and Harrison cam- 
paigns, 104 

Club, Liberal, New York, 15, 16; 
Jekyl Island, 63 



Clubs, in Indiana, 35, 37, 55, 62, 
63 ; in Washington, 134 to 136 

Cockran, W. Bourke, speech of, at 
Chicago Trust Conference, 171 

College, Columbia, 8 to 13; 
pranks, 10, 11, 13; politics, 11, 
12; honours, 12; law school, 13, 

14 
Collins, Pat, mayor of Boston, 65 
Colombia, and Panama revolution, 

123 to 126 
Columbia Law School, 13, 14 
Columbiad, 12 

Commerce Department, estab- 
lished, 174 
Communism in Russia, 222 
Connecticut judge, Roosevelt's 

appointment of, 147 to 150 
Conscience, curious operations of, 

219 
Conscientious objectors, 202 
Conscription Board, 201 to 203 
Conservation controversies, 157 
Constitutional Convention, Ohio, 

159 
Convention of 1912, Republican, 

160, 161 ; Progressive, 161 to 

163 ; of 1916, Republican and 

Progressive, 167, 168 
Corporations, Bureau of, 174 
Cortelyou, Secretary to President 

Roosevelt, and Secret Service 

men, 119 
Covenant of League of Nations, 

186 to 189 
Cox, Geo. B., boss of Cincinnati, 

supports Taft, 159 
Creek Indians, frauds on, 138 to 

142 
Crowder, Provost-Marshal Gen- 
eral, 201 
Curtis, George Wm., 88 

Davies and Work, firm of, 19 
Davis, J. C. Bancroft, on Sumner 
and Alabama Claims, 56 to 59 
Death, reflections on, 224, 225 
Democratic platform of 1912 and 

performance, 164 
Dewey, Admiral, change of feel- 
ing toward, 132 
Doctor of Laws degree, 68, 69 
Dog, intelligence of, 137, 138 
Dogberry, Congress compared 

with. 122, 123 
Dorothy Day, novel, 3, 210 



INDEX 



245 



Dramatic interests, 41 

Dreamers, 240, 241 

Drew, Daniel, service of summons 
on, 20 

Drisler, Professor Henry, re- 
writes Greek salutatory, 12 

Dwight, Dr. Theodore, head of 
Columbia law school, 13, 14 

Earlham College, 33, 67 ; open air 
stage in, 41 ; lecture at, on Rus- 
sian literature, 68; degree con- 
ferred by, 68, 69; peace meeling 
at, 179 

Early political affiliations, 100 to 
103 

Eaton, Dorman B., leader in Civil 
Service Reform, 88 

Ekkehard, views of Hunnish 
chiefs on Philosophy, 222, 223 

El Paso, collectorship, 120 

Eliot, Dr. Charles, President of 
Harvard, speech at Boston 
Civil Service meeting, 65 

England's early attitude toward 
the World War, 195, 196 

English constitution, "crescive," 

14 , . 

English Opera House, speech m, 

106 
Evening Item, Richmond, 204 
Exemptions from military duty, 

202 
Expert City Management, address 

on, 98 

Fairbanks, C. W., candidate for 
President, 1908, 150; sustainer 
of Indiana journalism, 230, 231 

Family, the, 41 

Faneuil Hall, meeting of Friends 
of Russian Freedom at, 96, 97 

Federal Trade Commission, 177 

Fiction, Masterpieces of the Mas- 
ters of, 210 

Fifteenth Amendment, Roose- 
velt's views on, 134 

Fighting the Spoilsmen, 210. 211 

Fish, Hamilton, and Alabama 
claims, 56 to 59 

Fishback, W. P., letter from, on 
Life of Morton, 206, 207 

Foote vs. Middletown Insane 
Asylum, 18 

Foulke, Edward and Eleanor, 3; 



Joseph, 5; Thomas, i, 3; Han- 
nah S., 3 

Fox, George, founder of Quaker- 
ism, 4 

Fo.x Hunt in Indiana, 39, 40 

Frankfort-on-the-Main, govern- 
ment of, 98 

Free Trade League, member of, 
102 

Friends of Russian Freedom, 96, 

97 

r riends' Seminary, 3 

Friends, Society of, 3 to 6; in 
Richmond, Ind., Jii't birthright 
member of, 219; principles, 219, 
220 ; conduct in World War, 202 

Funeral of Captain Y., i 

Garfield, James A., supported in 
campaign, 102 

Garfield, James R., succeeded by 
Ballinger, 157 

Garrison, Secretary of War, 
resignation of, 166 

Gaynor, Wm. J., debate with, on 
Proportional Representation, 93 

Gorman Emperor wanted Roose- 
velt to neutralise Yangtze Val- 
ley, 125, 126 

Gcnnan legislation on trusts, 176 

Germany warned after sinking 
Lusitania, diplomatic corre- 
spondence with, 166; scenes in. 
at outbreak of war, 190 to 195 

Gerrymander, 90 

Gettysburg, address at, 137 

Gilman, President Civil Service 
League, speaks at Boston, 65 

Golden mean. tlic. 224 

Gordon, J. B., editor Richmond 
Hem. 204 

Gossip against Roosevelt in 1910. 
13T to 133 

Greek, in college, 9 ; prize, 12 

Greek letter societies, 11; saluta- 
tory poem, 12 

Greeley, Horace, at the Liberal 
Club, eccentricities of, 15. 16; 
nominated by Liberal Repub- 
licans. 102 

Greenbackers. attack by. in cam- 
paign for State Senate, 70, 7' 

Hadley, President of Yale, on 
Connecticut judgeship case, 148 
to 150 



246 



INDEX 



Hanna, Mark, talked of as candi- 
date in 1904, 143 

Hanna, Thomas, Lieut.-Governor 
of Indiana, 71 

Happiness (sonnet), 213; how 
promoted, 223 

Harrison, General Benjamin, ad- 
dress to jury in will case, 49, 
50 ; his view of Venezuela Arbi- 
tration, 59; deserted by "mug- 
wumps," 60, 106; receives certi- 
ficate of character from Lit- 
erary Club, 63 ; candidacy of, in 
1888 and 1892, 104; attitude to- 
ward Civil Service, 104 

Hatton, Frank, publishes charges 
against Roosevelt, in Washing- 
ton Post, III 

Hatton, Prof. A. R., in Propor- 
tional Representation League, 

94 ^ ^ 

Hay, John, Secretary of State, 

at White House Sundays, 123 
Hay-Herran treaty, 124 
Hayes, Rutherford B., campaign, 

102 
Heart disease, cross-examination 

of physicians regarding, 21 to 

Hendricks, Thos. A., opposes 
"schoolmaster plan" for Civil 
Service appointments, yj ; 
Roosevelt's views on, 134 

Hickok's Empirical Psychology, 
222 

History of the Langohards, 209, 
210 

Hitchcock, Secretary Interior, 138 

Hitt, R. R., on Morton's mission 
to Louis Napoleon, 207 

Hoag, C. G., secretary Propor- 
tional Representation League, 

94 
Hoar, Senator at Unitarian con- 
ference, 61 
Holt, Hamilton, in League to En- 
force Peace, 182 
"Honesty racket," 131 
Hoosier ways, dialect, etc., 35 
Hopkins, Mark, reflections on old 

age, 216 
Horseback riding and leaping, 114 
Howard, General O. O., at Tues- 
day Club, 61 
Howe, Mrs. Julia Ward, in Amer- 
ican Woman's Suffrage Asso- 



ciation, 85; speak with at St. 
Paul, 86, 87; on Russian free- 
dom, 97 

Hughes, Chas. EL, President Na- 
tional Municipal League, 99; 
nomination and defeat for the 
Presidency, 167 to 169 

Hunnish chieftain's views on 
philosophy, 222, 223 

Icelandic library, 205 

In medio tutissimus ibis, 224 

Indiana, removal to, 29; life in, 
30 to 54 ; Centennial Ode to, 
30 ; charm of, 34, 35 ; painting 
in, id ; fox hunt, 39 ; literature, 
35; landscape, 34; clubs, 55 to 
67; poetry of, 212; self-made 
men, biographies of, 228; litera- 
ture and statesmanship of, 230; 
journalism of, 230, 231 ; finance 
in, 231; jurisprudence of, 231 

Indiana Bar, the, 42 to 50; re- 
tirement from, 51 

Indiana Senate, 71 to 83 

Indiana Society of Chicago, 63, 
64; speech before, 227 to 232 

Indiana's Output, address at In- 
diana Society of Chicago, 64, 
227 to 232 

Independents oppose Roosevelt 
for Governor, in to 113 

Indianapolis Literary Club, 62 

Indian frauds investigated at 
Muskogee, 138 to 142 

Indians, truthful witnesses, 142 

Individualism vs. collectivism, 
222 

"Inner Light," 4 to 6, 219 

Insane Hospital, at Richmond, 
73 ; at Indianapolis, partisan 
politics in, 74 

Insurgent Republicans, 152 

Intercollegiate Peace Association, 
address at, 179 

International Court, 180 to 182, 
221 ; not provided in League of 
Nations Covenant, 188 

Investigation of State Treasury 
by Senate, 78 to 81 

Item, the Richmond, 204 

Jacksons, the, 37, 38 

Jefferson, Thos., on re-election of 

Presidents, 163 
Jekyl Island Club, 64 to 67 



INDEX 



247 



Jews, anecdotes of, in lawsuits, 
24 to 27 

Johnson, Andrew, sends Morton 
to Louis Napoleon, 207, 208 

Johnson, Henry U., defends T. 
J. Study in assault case, 47 

Johnston, Mrs. M. F., 35 

Journalism, 204 

Judicial Settlement of Interna- 
tional Disputes, Society for, 182 

Julian, Geo. W., discussion on 
Sumner at Tuesday Club, 56 to 
60 

Justiciable Controversies, 183, 184 

Kaiser Wilhelm, Roosevelt's opin- 
ion of, 133 

Kelly, Robert L., President Earl- 
ham College confers degree, 68 

Kennan, Geo., letter on Russian 
treaty, 96; in Washington lit- 
erary society and at Baddeck, 

135 
Kern, John W., Senator, on pre- 
paredness, 197 
Kibbey, Judge, J. F., 45 
Knight case on Trusts, 172, 173 
Knights of the Golden Circle, 
article on, 207, 

Landis, Kenesaw M., judge, fines 
Standard Oil Co., 231 

Langobards, History of, 209, 210 

Law Practice, in New York, 19 
to 28; in Indiana, 42 to 51 ; re- 
flections on, in New York, 23, 
24; in Indiana, 51 to 54 

League of Nations and covenant, 
185 to 189, 221 

League to Enforce Peace, and 
correspondence with Roosevelt 
on, 183 to 186 

Legislation of 1883, futility of, 

74 
Lewis, Wm. Draper, chairman 
resolutions committee in Pro- 
gressive Convention, 162 
Liberal Club, New York, 15, 16 
Liberal Republican movement, 

102 
Liberty, involved in Suffrage, 235 
Lieber, Dr. Francis, lectures by, 
at law school, and eccentricities 
of, 14 
Life in Washington, 109 to 142 
Life's Evening (sonnet), 225 



Lincoln, Life of, by Nicolay and 
Hay, read by Roosevelt, 129, 
130 

Linden Hill, primitive organisa- 
tion of, Zi< 34 

Literary Club, Indianapolis, 62 

Literary Interests, 204 to 212 

Literary Society, Washington, 
135, 136 

Lloyd. Henry Demarest, at New 
York Liberal Club, 15 

Lodge, Henry Cabot, attitude to- 
ward Civil Service Reform, no 

Long Branch, residence in, 6, 7 

Lowell, A. Lawrence, in League 
to Enforce Peace, 182 to 184 

Ltisitania, 166, 196 

"Lyrics of War and Peace," 212 



Macbeth, acting in, 41 

Magee, Rufus, State Senator, ^2, 
80 

Malocsay, Francis, partnership 
with, 19 

Manchuria, intervention in, dis- 
cussed by Roosevelt, 125 

Alanson, General M. D., President 
of Senate, 76, 77 

Marburg, Theodore, in League to 
Enforce Peace, 182 

Marriage, 17, 18 

Married life, 18 

Marroquin, President of Colom- 
bia, 124 

Masterpieces of the Masters of 
Fiction, 210 

Matterhorn-climbing near Wash- 
ington, 116 to 118 

Maya, a romance of Yucatan, 
208; a lyric drama of Yucatan, 
211 

McCullough, State Senator in 
Treasury, 79, 81 

McKinlej', at Jekyl Island, 64; 
Bryan campaign, 105 ; charac- 
teristics, id ; course in Spanish 
War, 106, 107; death, 108 

Metaphysics unsatisfactory, 222, 
223 

Mexico, Morton's mission to se- 
cure evacuation of French 
troops from, 207 

Miller, butler and coachman, 137, 
138 

Middle course, best, 224 



248 



INDEX 



Miliukoflf, Prof., in Russian 

Duma, 97 
Mill, John Stuart, drift from, his 

philosophy, 222; on government 

by Indian princesses, 239 
Mitchell, Dr. Weir, 64, 65 
Mob psychology, 102, 103 
Model City Charter, 98, 99 
Monroe Doctrine, 184, 188 
Morley, John, on Kaiser, 133 
Morton, Oliver P., Life of, 205 to 

207; criticised by Roosevelt, 

133, 134 ^ , 

Morton, Oliver T., son of above, 

20s 
Mott, Lucretia, Quaker minister, 

5 
Mountaineering, 214 
Mugvvumps, paper on, 60, 61 ; 

criticised by Roosevelt, 133, 134 
Municipal League, 97 to 99 
Municipal programme, 98, 99 
Murdock of Kansas, supports 

President Wilson's neutrality, 

198 
Muskogee, Investigation, 138 to 

142 

Napoleon III, O. P. Morton's 
mission to, 207 

Napoleonder, by Kennan, 135 

National American Woman Suf- 
frage Association, 85, 86; ad- 
dress at opening, 233 to 241 

National Municipal League, 97 to 

99 
Nauheim, at outbreak of war, 190 
Nebraska, summer in, 16; Indian 

trial in, 17 
Negro, toleration toward, 82, 83 
Neutralisation of territories, 180 
New Madison, Ohio, speech at, 

102, 103 
Nicolay and Hay's Life of Lin- 
coln, 129, 130 
Norton letter concerning Taft, 

Noyes, appomted Judge by 
Roosevelt, 149, i5o 

Office boy, George, 19 to 21 
Old age, 216 
Olney, Richard S., 65 
Oratory, in State Legislature, 79 
to 82 



Page, Thos. Nelson, 64 
Palladium, Richmond, 204 
Panama Canal, discussed by 

Roosevelt, 123, 124 

Parker, Alton B., nominated, 143 ; 

unimpressive campaign, 145 ; in 

League to Enforce Peace, 182 

Partisanship, in State Senate, 7^, 

74 

Paul the Deacon, criticised by 
Roosevelt, 134; translation of, 
209, 210, 230 

Peace, preliminary organisation 
for securing, 179 to 1S2; League 
to Enforce, 182 to 186 

Peck, Prof, of Mathematics, pe- 
culiarities of, eloquent demon- 
stration by, 9 

Perkins, Geo. W., letter to, on 
1916 convention, 167 ; on pre- 
paredness, 198, 199 

Perry, Judge, 43, 44 

Personal associations at Indiana 
bar, 48 to 51 

Petrarch, Some Love Songs of, 
211, 212 

Philippine Question, 107 

Phillips, Wendell, 100 

Philolexian society, 13 

Philosophy of Life, 222 to 224 

Pinchot, Gifford, at White House 
Sunday evenings, 123 ; removed 
by Taft, 157; at Progressive 
convention, 162 

Poetry, various works in, 211, 
212; futurist, 212 

Political activities, 100 to 108 

Porter, Governor A. G., recom- 
mends Treasury investigation, 
78, 80 

Practical precepts for life, 223, 
224 

Preparation for World War, 165, 
166; efforts to secure prepared- 
ness, 196 to 201 

Presidents, re-election of, 163 

Procter, John R., ride? with, 114; 
at White House Sundays, 
123 

Progressive movement, 151 to 
169; convention and campaign 
of 1912, 161 to 163 ; platform of 
1912, 162; 1916 campaign, 167, 
168; apathy on preparedness, 
197 to 200; dinner at Indianapo- 
lis January 1915, 199 



INDEX 



249 



Progressives aroused at last, 201 ; 
deprived of patronage by Taft, 

Progressives (sonnet), 151 

Proportional Representation, 89 
to 94; arguments for, 89 to 92; 
League, 93, 94; Review, 93 

Protean Papers, 209 

Public Opinion as a sanction for 
international court, 180, 181 

Public Questions, 84 to 99 

Purdy, Lawson, President Na- 
tional Municipal League, 99 

Putnam, Herbert, 129; Literary 
Club, 135; Round Table Club, 
136 

Quaker Boy, The, 210 
Quaker City of the West, 33 
Quakers, 3 to 5 
Quay, M. S., 131 

Railroad law practice, 47, 48 

Railsback, Jehiel, 38 

Recall of decisions and judges, 
159, 160 

Reed, Rev. Myron W., on In- 
dianapolis Literary Club, 62 

Reed, Thos., Speaker, no 

Reeves, Arthur M., 204, 205 

Reeves, Mark E., 17 

Reeveston, 33 

Reflections on law practice, 51 to 
54; on life, 222 to 228 

Rempublicam Ad (stanza), 170 

Representation of women, in 
government, 237, 238 

Republican Convention of 1912, 
frauds in, 160, 161 ; convention 
of 1916, 167, 168 

Retrospect, 221, 222 

Rhodes' history of U. S., criti- 
cised by Roosevelt, 134 

Richmond, Ind., removal to, and 
home in, 29 to 34; town de- 
scribed, 2>?>, 34 ; Art Association 
of, 35 to 2)7 ', local colour, 2>7y 
38; home guard, 38, 39; literary 
fertility of, 227 

Rides and walks with the Presi- 
dent, 113 to 119 

Riis, Jacob, story of Roosevelt 
and coal strike, 131 

Riley, James Whitcomb, 63 ; son- 
net to, 55 ; opposed to new 
school of poetry, 212 



Riverhead, trial at, 21 to 23 

Rives, Geo. L., 13 

Robinson, Mrs. Douglas, 132 

Roosevelt, Theodore, early recol- 
lections of, no to 113; as 
Civil Service Commissioner, 
no, m; investigated by Con- 
gress, id ; his home in Wash- 
ington, id ; candidate for gov- 
ernor, in to Hi; letter from, 
on governorship campaign, i\2, 
1 13 ; becomes Vice President, 
108; rides and walks with, 
when President, w^ to n9; 
other personal incidents, 120 to 
126; giving advice to, 121, 122; 
on Ananias Club, id ; charac- 
teristics, 127 to 134; leadership, 
127 ; devotion and love of his 
friends, and rage of his ene- 
mies, id; sympathy with plain 
people, 127, 12S; joy of living, 
128; sense of humour, id; 
hard and speedy worker, 128, 
129; voracious reader, 129, 130; 
primitive type, 130; practical, 
id ; love of fair play, id ; not 
erratic, id ; views on negro 
question, and on Fifteenth 
Amendment, 134; on coal strike, 
131 ; toward Piatt and Quay, 
id ; on labour, id ; Washington 
gossip on, 131, 132; his esti- 
mate of crowned heads, 133; 
literary criticisms by, 133, 134; 
campaign of 1904, 143 to 146; 
sonnet on, 143 ; makes peace be- 
tween Russia and Japan, 146; 
supports Taft in 1908, id ; 
charged with coercing em- 
ployees, id ; exonerated by 
Civil Service League, 146, 147; 
answers charges of abuse of 
patronage in Noyes judgeship 
case in Conn., 147 to 150; his 
policies ignored by Taft, 151, 
152, 157, 158; return from 
Africa, 157; urges friends not 
to break with Taft, I57. ^58; 
becomes candidate 1912, 158; 
"ingratitude" to Taft, id; con- 
troversy with Taft, T58 to 161 ; 
Columbus speech, recall of de- 
cisions and judges, 159, 160; in 
Progressive convention and 
campaign of 1912, 161, 162; on 



250 



INDEX 



third term, 163 ; in convention 
and campaign of 1916, 168; ex- 
treme hostility to Wilson, 168, 
169 ; views on question of the 
trusts, 176; on League to En- 
force Peace, 183, 184; corre- 
spondence with, on prepared- 
ness, 198, 199; arouses coun- 
try to prepare, 199; offer of 
service to in World War, 201 ; 
his death, 221 

Roosevelt and Taft campaigns, 
143 to 150 

Round Robin of Taft, Root and 
Knox, 122 

Round Table Club, Washington, 
136 

Rowell, Chester, 162 

Russia at outbreak of war, 191, 

193 

Russian diplomacy, Roosevelt on, 
124 to 126 

Russian literature, episode at 
lecture on, 68 

Russian question, 94 to 97 ; ex- 
tradition treaty, 95, 96; errone- 
ous views on, 221, 222; com- 
munism, 222 

Rupe, John L., 48 

Sanction for international tribu- 
nals, 180, 181 

Sayre, Warren G., on Treasury 
Investigation, 78, 79 

Schmidt, Professor, 9, 10 

Schurz, Carl, in National Civil 
Service League, 65, 88; on 
Anti-Imperialism, 107; criti- 
cised by Roosevelt, 134; open 
letter against Roosevelt, 144; 
criticism for supporting Bryan, 

145 
Scrimmage, 45 to 47 
Scudder, Janet, bronze by, at Art 

Association, 2i7 
Secret Service guards of Roose- 
velt, 119 
Senate, of Indiana, 70 to 83 
Senate (Federal) not consulted 

on League of Nations, 188, 189 
Servia, at outbreak of war, 190, 

191 
Session of 1883, in State Senate, 

71 to 74 ; session of 1885, 741083 
Seymour, Horatio, Roosevelt's 

view of, 134 



Shoemaker, Abraham, 3 

Shoemaker, Margaret, 3 

Siddall, Jesse P., 29, 43 

Siddall and Foulke, 47, 48 

Simpson, Bishop, sermon by, 7, 8 

Slav and Saxon, 94, 95; mistake 
in, 221, 222 

Sohieski, John, Life of, 129 

Socialistic drift of the world, 222 

Sovereignty and suffrage, 237, 238 

Spann, Jesse J., State Senator, 72 

Speck von Sternberg, 125 

Spencer, Herbert, drift away 
from his philosophy, 222 

Spofford, A. W., 135 

Sports, 214, 215 

Springfield Republican, Bona- 
parte's letter to, on Panama 
treaty, 126 

St. Gaudens, Augustus, on Adams 
monument, 136, 137 

Standard Oil Co., 172, 174 

Sterne, Simon, president N. Y. 
Proportional Representation 
Society, 93 

Stone, Lucy, 85 

Storey, Moorfield, Anti-Imperial- 
ist, 107 

Straus, Oscar S., in League to 
Enforce Peace, 182; his esti- 
mate of Roosevelt, 127 

Study, Thos. J., 45 to 47 

Sugar Trust case, 172 

Sumner, Chas., in Alabama Arbi- 
tration case, and his removal 
from Foreign Relations Com- 
mittee, 56 to 60 

Sunday evenings at White House, 
123 to 126 

Supreme Court as model for in- 
ternational Court, 181 ; sanction 
of, id 

Sussex, sunk by German subma- 
rine, 166 

Swarthmore College, 69 

Swift. Lucius B., at Tuesday 
Club, 55 ; investigation of Fed- 
eral Civil Service, with, 88; 
visit to Oyster Bay with, 133, 
i57, 158 

Taft, Chas. P., editor Times Star, 

1 55 
Taft, William H., regarding Civil 
Service Reform, 89; campaign 
of 1908, 146 to 150; elected 



INDEX 



251 



President, 151 ; ignores Roose- 
velt's policies, 151, 152, 157, 
158; Cabinet changes made by, 
152; correspondence with re- 
garding Cannon, 152, 153; re- 
garding Payne-Aldrich bill, 154 
to 156; on Winona speech, 154, 
155; letter to Lucius B. Swift, 
156; deprives Progressives of 
patronage, 157; Norton letter, 
id; appoints Ballinger, id; re- 
moves Pinchot, id ; relations to- 
wards bosses, 159; controversy 
with Roosevelt, 158 to 161 ; at- 
titude toward Trusts, in cam- 
paign with Bryan, 174; recom- 
mends their voluntary incor- 
poration, 17s; president of 
League to Enforce Peace, 182, 
183 
Tammany machine methods, 217, 

218 
Tariff, Payne-Aldrich, 152 to 155 
Tarkington, Booth, 229, 230 
The Muse and I, 204 
Third term question, 162, 163 
Tilden, Samuel J., campaign, i03 
Today and Yesterday, poems, 

212 
Toleration toward negro, 82, 83 
Trade Commission, Federal, 177 
Treasury Investigation by State 

Senate, 78 to 81 
Trojan Women, The. 41 
Trusts, the, 170 to 178; voluntary 
incorporation of, 175; Canadian 
law, 175, 176; German regula- 
tions, 176; remedies for, 176, 
177; Federal Trade Commis- 
sion, 177 
Tuesday Club, 56 to 62 
Turpie, David, senator, on Russian 

treaty, 95, 96 
Tweed, regime overthrown, loi, 
102 

Uchida, Japanese ambassador, 

132 
Underground Railroad, 3, 100 
Unitarian Conference, address, 61 

Vallandigham, Roosevelt's view 

of, 134. 
Van Amringe, Professor, 10 
Venezuela, message of Cleveland 

on, 57 to 59 



Vexations, how to avoid, 223 
Voluntary incorporation of trusts, 

Von SchefTel's Ekkehard, 222, 223 



Waite, Henry M., president of 
National Municipal League, 99 

Walks and rides with Roosevelt, 
113 to 119 

Wanamaker, John, in 

Washington's Birthday, speech on 
preparedness, 200 

Washington, life in, 109 to 138 

Washington gossip against Roose- 
velt, 131 to 133 

Washington Literary Society, 135 

Washington, George, on re-elec- 
tion of Presidents, 163 

Wealth, dangers of concen- 
trated, 177, 178 

Weekly News, Richmond, attacks 
in, 70, 71 

Wells, David A., 215 

Welsh, Herbert, 112 

Western Association of Writers, 
62, 63 

Western Economics Society, ad- 
dress at Chicago to, 177 

Whims and Fancies, 213 to 216 

White, Wm. Allen, 162 

Wilson, Woodrow, attitude to- 
ward Civil Service Reform, 89; 
elected President, 163 ; his first 
administration, 164 to 166; con- 
venes Congress, 164 ; announces 
policies, id ; ignores platform, 
id ; foreign policy, 165 ; delays 
preparation for war, 165, 166; 
accepts Garrison's resignation, 
166; Roosevelt's opposition to, 
168, 169; attitude on League to 
Enforce Peace, 185; on Leapue 
of Nations, 185 to 189; his neu- 
trality policy, 196, 109; his 
Jackson Day speech at Indian- 
apolis, 199 ; at last advocates 
preparedness, 200 

JVtneland the Good, 20.t 

Winnebago Indians, trial of, 17 

Winona speech by Taft, 154, 155 

Woman Suffrage, 84 to 86; ad- 
dress to National American 
Woman Suffrage Association, 
233 to 241 

Womankind (stanza), 84 



252 INDEX 

Woman's capacity for govern- Yangtze Valley, guaranty of, 125 

ment, 239 Yosemite valley, 17 

Woman's sphere, 236, 237 Young, General, 114 

Woodruff, C. W., secretary Mu- Yucatan, Maya, a romance of, 

nicipal League, 97, 98 208; Maya, a lyrical drama of, 

World Federation, 182, 189 211 
World War, igo to 203 ; outbreak 

in Germany, 190 to 195 ; Wilson 

delays preparation for, 165 



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